Utal  ileligion 


HOWARD  ALLEN  BRIDGMAN 


1^ 


APR  17  law 


BV  4501  .B733  1910 
^-itzT""'   ^°''^'"^   Allen,  186 
Real  religion 


REAL    RELIGION 


REAL  RELIGI 


APR 


FRIENDLY    TALKS    TO    THE    AVERAGE    MAN 
ON  CLEAN  AND  USEFUL  LIVING 


BY        ^ 

HOWARD  ALLEN  BRIDGMAN 


Author  of  "Steps  Christward" 


THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 

BOSTON  NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 


Copyright,  iQio 
By  Luther  H.  Cary 


THE*  PLIMPTON  'PRESS 

[WD-O] 
NORWOOD  -MASS*  U  'S'A 


Co 

MY  CHILDREN 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  Straight  Word  on  Religion i 

"One  World  at  a  Time" 5 

The  Luck  of  the  Road 9 

The  First  Thoughts  on  Waking     • 14 

Trolley-Car  Theology 18 

"As  Good  as  the  Average" 22 

"That  Little  Streak  of  Religion" 26 

To  One  Soured  on  Life 30 

The  Fun  of  Beginning  Again 34 

The  Contagion  of  Good  Cheer 38 

The  Large  in  the  Little 42 

Running  by  the  Signals 46 

The  Buried  Life 50 

The  Drummer's  Sunday 54 

Fixed  Ideas'. 58 

"  After  You,  Please  " 62 

"She  Could,  She  Would,  She  Did" 65 

"Be  Somebody" 69 

"How  IS  Business?" 72 

Off  Days 76 

"Same  Old  Job" 80 

The  Courage  to  Part  with  Things 84 

Life  on  Easy  Street 88 

The  Standstills  of  Life 92 

Snap  Judgments       • 95 

The  Art  of  Appreciation 99 

Our  Human  Islands 102 

The  Reserves  in  Human  Nature 107 

The  Good  Listener iii 

Human  Beings  as  Links 115 

[vii] 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

One  Good  Life 119 

A  Man  and  His  Echo 123 

The  Mother's  Part 127 

All  Hail  to  the  Breadwinner 131 

"Fond  of  His  Folks" 135 

A  Home-Maker 138 

What  Shall  the  Middle-Aged  Man  Do?      .      .     .  142 

This  Next  Week's  Friendliness 146 

When  is  a  Man  Old? 149 

Why  Go  to  Church? 154 

The  Question  Why 158 

Where  Do  People  Go  When  They  Die?  ....  162 

The  One-Legged  Boy's  Thankfulness     ....  166 

The  Good-Will  Company  Unlimited 170 

The  Man  Who  Came  Back 174 

The  Charm  of  the  Impossible  • 178 

The  Man  You  Might  Be 182 


[  vlii 


FOREWORD 

THIS  is  not  a  book  for  scholars,  though 
the  author  hopes  that  his  construing 
of  religion  is  not  at  variance  with  scholarship. 
Neither  is  it  a  book  for  saints;  yet  if  any  of 
its  words  shall  strengthen  their  serene  and 
tested  faith,  the  author  will  be  glad.  It 
is  a  book  for  the  man  and  the  woman  in 
the  midst  of  the  moral  struggle,  exposed 
to  the  materialism  and  the  pessimism  of 
our  age.  And  it  comes  from  one  who  would 
have  them  regard  him,  not  as  an  ethical 
teacher  or  a  spiritual  adviser,  but  as  their 
fellow  soldier  and  their  friend. 


[ix] 


REAL   RELIGION 


A  STRAIGHT  WORD  ON  RELIGION 

THE  swift  passing  of  the  years  can 
hardly  fail  to  make  us  thoughtful. 
What  does  it  all  mean  —  this  rapid  flight 
of  time?  Is  there  any  clue  to  the  mystery? 
Long  as  life  may  be,  in  the  case  of  any  of 
us,  it  is  short  at  best.  Seventy,  eighty, 
even  ninety  years  are  a  brief  span  compared 
with  the  sweep  of  eternity.  If  there  is  any- 
thing certain  in  this  uncertain  world  it  is 
that  we  sfiall  not  be  here  long.  The  vast 
majority  of  us  will  speedily  be  forgotten. 
Is  there  anything  that  can  give  dignity  and 
significance  to  these  transient  years? 

Only  one  answer  to  this  question  has 
satisfied  the  heart  of  man.  Religion  alone, 
personal  religion,  gives  meaning  and  glory 
to  life;  and  the  irreligious  man,  whatever  else 
he  may  be,  honest,  kind,  generous,  fails  to 
grasp  life's  real  riches.  I  am  not  speaking 
now  of  one  religion  as  distinct  from  an- 
other or  of  the  fine  distinctions  within  the 

[I] 


REAL    RELIGION 


pale  of  a  given  religion,  say  Christianity. 
I  have  in  mind  rather  the  religious  spirit 
which  underlies  all  religious  forms  and  which 
often  unites  those  whose  outward  observ- 
ances are  quite  unlike  even  though  they 
ignore  this  inner  tie.  So  when  I  urge  a 
man  to  be  religious  I  do  not  ask  him  first 
of  all  to  accept  my  creed  or  attend  my 
church.  I  bid  him  rather  connect  his  life, 
as  he  will,  with  that  great  force  called  religion, 
which  he  already  knows  is  the  secret  of  the 
world's  progress  and  the  power  behind  the 
lives  of  the  best  men  and  women  whom  the 
world  has  ever  known.  Two  or  three  things 
I  deem  to  be  essential. 

You  must  submit  your  life  to  this  higher 
power.  You  must  trust  and  obey  it.  The 
heart  of  religion  is  some  form  of  submission. 
You  must  confess  that  you  are  not  strong 
or  wise  enough  to  go  alone.  You  must 
put  your  ambitions,  your  hopes,  your  capaci- 
ties in  the  keeping  of  one  worthy  to  be 
trusted  and  loved  and  served.  In  other 
words,  you  must  become  a  child  again  and 
lean  hard  upon  a  strength  and  wisdom  that 
are  not  your  own.  There  is  only  one  class 
of  persons  who  can  never  be  truly  religious. 
They  are  the  proud  and  the  self-sufficient. 

[2] 


A    STRAIGHT    WORD 

You  must  pray.  You  must  cultivate  an 
intimacy  with  this  higher  power.  Your 
prayers  need  not  be  long  or  conventional, 
but  they  ought  to  be  frequent  and  genuine. 
No  matter  if  praying  comes  hard  at  first, 
persist  and  the  practise  will  be  easier  and 
increasingly  rewarding.  Don't  stop  to  theo- 
rize or  philosophize  on  the  subject,  but  learn 
to  speak  to  God  as  simply  and  as  naturally 
as  children  talk  to  their  parents.  Not  all 
your  prayers  will  be  answered.  As  you 
keep  on  praying  you  will  care  less  and  less 
for  that,  but  prayer  persisted  in  brings  its 
own  assurance  that  it  pays  to  pray,  that  a 
man  is  not  wasting  his  breath,  but  is  com- 
muning with  the  Almighty. 

One  thing  more.  The  religious  mood 
depends  for  its  sustenance  also  on  the  right 
kind  of  food.  There  is  a  book  which  looms 
far  above  all  other  books  in  its  power  to 
inform  and  kindle  the  spirit  of  man  as  he 
seeks  to  have  commerce  with  his  Creator. 
I  do  not  claim  for  the  Bible  every  merit 
which  some  of  its  too  zealous  friends  claim, 
but  I  am  sure  that  it  is  essential  to  the  build- 
ing up  and  perfecting  of  the  religious  life. 

Such  are  some  of  the  basal  elements  of 
personal    religion.     Why    not,    my    friend, 

[3] 


REAL    RELIGION 


have  a  religion  of  your  own?  Why  wait 
till  everything  is  explained?  Why  be  dis- 
couraged because  you  started  a  long  time 
ago  and  failed? 


t4l 


"ONE  WORLD  AT  A  TIME" 

"  T  T  E  is  one  of  those  fellows  who 
MTl  believes  in  only  one  world  at  a 
time,"  commented  a  sagacious,  elderly  man 
upon  a  youth  of  marked  ability  who  is, 
nevertheless,  an  out  and  out  agnostic.  No 
Epicurean  of  old  ever  took  more  pains  to 
tickle  his  palate  or  to  please  his  esthetic 
sensibilities.  His  conception  of  this  world 
where  he  will  probably  stay  a  few  years 
longer  is  that  of  an  orange  from  which  he 
should  extract  all  possible  savory  nutriment, 
and  to  which  he  is  under  no  obligation  to 
contribute  anything  that  makes  for  its 
uplift. 

There  are  a  good  many  of  them  —  these 
one-world-at-a-time  fellows — and  on  the  sur- 
face there  is  much  to  justify  them  in  the 
attitude  they  take.  This  is  a  very  good 
world,  a  vital,  rich,  throbbing  world  which 
responds  in  a  wonderful  number  of  ways 
to  our  craving  for  sensuous  gratification. 
Science  and  invention  are  multiplying  con- 
stantly the  devices  that  add  to  our  ease 
and   comfort.     We   have   but   to   press   the 

[5] 


REAL    RELIGION 


button  and  clever  mechanisms  do  the  rest. 
Moreover  we  have  outgrown  the  old-fashioned 
notion  that  we  have  no  right  to  the  whole- 
some pleasures  which  this  world  yields. 
We  have  ceased  to  tell  young  people  that 
they  are  not  to  delight  themselves  in  ordi- 
nary recreations  lest  their  soul  should  be 
in  danger  of  perdition.  In  the  first  place, 
young  people  wouldn't  believe  it  if  we  told 
them  so,  and  in  the  second  place,  it  isn't 
true.  The  Bible  itself  says:  "He  hath  made 
every  thing  beautiful  in  its  time."  "God 
giveth  us  richly  all  things  to  enjoy." 

At  the  same  time,  that  theory  of  life 
which  would  limit  it  to  interest  in  things 
seen  and  tangible  breaks  down  at  certain 
points.  It  does  not  help  us  in  the  moral 
struggle  when  our  better  natures  assert 
themselves  and  would  rise  above  the  things 
that  drag  us  down  to  earth.  Furthermore, 
we  tire  at  times  of  incessant  rounds  of 
pleasure.  Even  brownstone  mansions  and 
six  thousand  dollar  touring  cars  cannot 
satisfy  certain  moods  of  our  minds. 

Again,    we    cannot    shut    out    the    other 

world  if  we  would.     As  the  poet  says,  "It 

lies   around    us    like    a   cloud."     Something 

happens   to  bring  it  very  near.     There   is 

[6] 


"ONE    WORLD    AT    A    TIME" 

a  death  in  the  family  or  on  the  street,  or 
our  own  physical  powers  begin  to  decline. 

"  We  long  for  household  faces  gone, 
For  vanished  forms  we  long." 

At  such  times  the  theory  that  there  is 
only  one  world  for  us  becomes  almost  in- 
tolerable. We  look  around  and  see  those 
who  have  succeeded  in  dwelling  in  both 
worlds,  to  whom  one  is  almost  as  real  as 
the  other,  who  while  taking  the  true  delight 
in  books,  music,  painting,  travel,  human 
fellowship,  and  even  in  good  things  to  eat 
and  good  things  to  wear,  find  also  an  even 
higher  satisfaction  in  the  things  which  the 
eye  does  not  see  nor  the  hand  touch.  They 
honestly  believe  that  they  are  denizens  of 
two  worlds  and  that  they  lose  a  great  deal 
out  of  their  lives  when  they  confine  them- 
selves to  one. 

Sometime  even  the  one-world-at-a-time 
men  may  wake  up  and  find  themselves 
wofully  mistaken.  We  are  not  forecasting 
their  plight  then,  but  it  is  folly  to  try  to 
wall  out  here  and  now  the  world  of  spiritual 
realities.  The  one-world-at-a-time  people 
may  not  suffer  hereafter  in  just  the  way 
the  stiff  theologies  have  affirmed  they  would, 
but  how   strange   that   country  must   seem 

[7] 


REAL    RELIGION 


to  them  when  they  reach  it,  having  made 
no  preparation  for  it  while  here.  Certainly 
if  one  were  going  to  Europe  sometime  he 
would,  if  possible,  make  some  preparation 
for  it.  He  would  occasionally  read  a  book 
that  tells  about  it,  or  talk  with  somebody 
who  had  been  there,  or  let  his  mind  in  imag- 
ination some  quiet  Sunday  evening  roam 
toward  that  delectable  country  which  he 
hoped  to  see  some  day.  Then,  when  he 
went,  he  would  not  be  altogether  dazed 
or  find  the  atmosphere  too  rare  for  him,  or 
show  himself  at  every  turn  in  the  journey 
a  novice  or  an  ignoramus. 


[8] 


THE  LUCK  OF  THE  ROAD 

IN  that  charming  novel  entitled  "Felicity," 
and  depicting  the  modern  stage  and  the 
life  of  the  people  who  figure  on  it,  the  phrase 
**The  luck  of  the  road"  again  and  again 
appears.  It  is  frequently  on  the  lips  of 
the  hero  of  the  book,  the  Old  Man,  and  he 
always  uses  it  to  cheer  the  members  of  his 
company  when  they  get  down  in  the  mouth. 
His  point  was  that  having  accepted  the 
romantic  and  uncertain  life  of  their  profession 
they  should  not  whine  over  its  "outs," 
but  should  rather  exhibit  a  soldierly  spirit 
and  extract  all  the  comfort  and  pleasure 
they  could  out  of  even  hard  experiences 
and  situations.  And  this  genial  philosophy 
governed  the  Old  Man  not  only  in  relation 
to  his  troupe,  but  in  his  dealings  with  all 
whom  he  met. 

Perhaps  a  theater  can  sometimes  teach 
the  pulpit  a  lesson.  At  any  rate,  there  is 
a  deal  of  gospel  sense  in  this  view  of  life. 
For  we  are  all  "up  against  it"  in  one  way 
and  another.  Whether  we  go  abroad  or 
stay  at  home,  whether  we  work  for  ourselves 

[9l 


REAL    RELIGION 


or  work  for  others,  whether  we  wear  broad- 
cloth or  homespun,  we  are  all  amenable  to 
the  luck  of  the  road.  If  we  have  chosen  a 
profession  or  trade,  there  will  be  some 
inevitable  limitations  and  drawbacks  con- 
nected with  it.  If  we  have  married  a  wife 
or  husband,  perhaps  he  or  she  will  be  one 
or  two  notches  short  of  perfection.  If  we 
have  centered  all  our  hopes  on  some  beauti- 
ful expectation  it  may  fail  us;  or,  if  not, 
the  reality  may  fall  far  below  the  anticipa- 
tion. And  before  we  know  it,  we  will  be 
in  the  mood  of  the  little  girl  who  moaned, 
"The  world  is  hollow.  My  doll  is  made  of 
sawdust,  and  I  want  to  be  a  nun." 

But  is  that  the  right  spirit  in  which  to 
meet  life  as  it  comes  to  us.?  Isn't  it  far 
better  to  accept  the  luck  of  the  road,  rather 
than  to  kick  against  it.^*  It  may  help  us  to 
submission  to  remember  that  our  case  is 
never  so  exceptional  as  it  seems.  We  all  get 
in  the  habit  of  looking  at  our  woes  through 
the  end  of  the  telescope  that  magnifies 
them;  and  then  we  reverse  the  instrument 
and  look  at  other  folks'  troubles,  and  how 
small  they  seem!  But  get  down  to  the 
heart  of  that  well-gowned  lady  of  society, 
that  prosperous  business  man,  and  maybe 
[10] 


LUCK    OF    THE    ROAD 

his  luck  will  seem  as  hard  as  yours.  The 
longer  I  live,  the  more  I  am  impressed 
with  the  universality  of  discipline  and  sorrow. 
If  it  doesn't  come  in  one  form,  it  usually 
comes  in  another.  The  skies  may  be  fair 
day  after  day,  but  depend  upon  it,  the  clouds 
will  come  and  very  few  people  indeed  are 
able  to  live  out  many  years  and  never  have 
to  look  back  upon  loss,  disappointment, 
pain,  and  hardship. 

It  helps  us  also  to  look  for  the  relieving 
features  which  are  seldom  absent  from  any 
experience.  Standing  on  the  front  of  a 
car  the  other  night,  I  overheard  a  motor- 
man  complaining  about  his  luck  —  that  it 
was  all  the,  one  way  and  that  a  bad  way. 
"Well,  my  friend,"  I  remarked,  "you  look 
in  mighty  good  physical  condition.  I  envy 
you  your  physique  and  brawn."  "Yes," 
he  admitted,  "I  have  hardly  had  a  sick 
day  in  my  life."  "Are  you  married.^" 
"Yes,  only  a  few  months  ago."  "And  you 
have  a  pretty  good  job?"  "Yes,  I  have 
stuck  to  it  six  years."  "Well,"  said  I, 
"a  man  with  health,  home,  and  work  Isn't 
so  badly  off  after  all."  And  then  I  thought 
of  another  carman  whom  I  know,  whose 
wife    has    been    in    the    insane    asylum    for 

[11] 


REAL    RELIGION 


several  years,  and  whose  children  have  all 
died,  and  yet  who  never  fails  to  wear  a 
cheerful  countenance,  and  I  said  to  myself, 
"How  tremendously  men  differ  in  the  way  in 
which  they  take  their  luck!" 

And  one  reason  for  the  difference  lies  in 
the  attitude  they  have  toward  other  people's 
hard  luck.  Lend  a  hand  to  the  fellow  who 
is  a  little  worse  off  than  you,  and  you  will 
find  yourself  taking  a  much  more  cheerful 
view  of  your  own  luck.  When  we  begin 
to  be  helpers  of  individual  human  beings 
and  cease  being  critics  of  the  universe  in 
general  a  brighter  era  in  our  own  personal 
history  begins. 

The  people  who  down  deep  in  their  hearts 
believe  that  a  good  strong  hand  holds  the 
helm  of  this  universe  are  the  ones  who  com- 
plain least  over  what  happens.  Away  with 
the  idea  that  the  miscellaneous  events  of 
each  passing  day  that  are  fraught  with  sor- 
row or  joy  for  all  mankind  simply  happen. 
Let's  side  with  the  man  who  cried  out  of 
his  experience  of  harder  luck  than  most 
of  us  have  ever  known,  "All  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God." 
And  let's  side  with  that  greater  Man  who 
saw  into  the  heart  of  things  when  he  said, 

[12] 


LUCK    OF    THE    ROAD 

"Every  branch  in  me  that  beareth  not  fruit, 
he  taketh  it  away:  and  every  branch  that 
beareth  fruit,  he  cleanseth  it,  that  it  may 
bear  more  fruit." 


13] 


THE  FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  WAKING 

A  FATHER  of  my  acquaintance  makes 
it  a  point  to  be  at  the  bedside  of 
his  little  three-year-old  boy  as  soon  as  he 
wakes  every  morning,  and  in  the  father's 
absence  the  mother  is  there.  The  idea 
is  that  the  touch  of  the  parent's  love  and 
interest  upon  the  child  as  he  comes  back  to 
consciousness  after  sleep  is  far  better  than 
that  of  a  hired  servant  and  is  likely  to 
prove  of  great  and  permanent  worth  in  the 
child's  development. 

Back  of  this  instance  of  fatherly  fore- 
thought is  the  fundamental  principle  that 
it  is  important  for  any  one  to  start  the  day 
in  the  right  mood.  Who  of  us  older  people 
does  not  feel  the  need  of  some  such  sweeten- 
ing and  steadying  influence  at  the  outset 
of  each  new  day.^*  Too  often  the  cares  of 
yesterday  come  trooping  back  as  we  slowly 
emerge  from  dreamland,  and  if  some  vexing 
problem  must  be  dealt  with  during  the  next 
twenty-four  hours,  how  quickly  that  comes 
before  us  also.  If  we  could  only  secure, 
before    the    plunge    into    the   whirlpool    of 

114] 


THOUGHTS    ON    WAKING 

activities,  just  a  few  minutes  of  happy, 
inspiring  thoughts,  what  a  difference  it 
would  make  in  the  entire  day! 

Our  parents  cannot  long  secure  this  desir- 
able mood  for  us,  but  our  own  wills,  if 
resolute  enough,  can  do  much  to  induce  it. 
Determine  first  of  all  that  your  waking 
thought  shall  not  relate  to  yesterday's 
troubles  and  failures,  but  to  today's  oppor- 
tunities. The  former  have  passed  into  his- 
tory. They  were  hard  enough  to  bear  at 
the  moment.  Why  should  we  let  them  con- 
tinue to  dog  us  ?  Susan  Coolidge  has  written 
nothing  sweeter  than  the  poem  commencing, 

*'  Every  day  is  a  new  beginning, 
Every  morn  is  the  world  made  new." 

Send  the  thoughts  forward  then  to  all  the 
chances  of  happiness  and  growth  which  the 
new  day  is  sure  to  bring.  O  glorious  new 
day,  fresh  from  its  Maker's  hand,  all  golden 
with  possibilities,  as  yet  unscarred  by  our 
shortcomings!  O  glorious  new  day,  we  hail 
thee  and  rejoice  that  we  are  permitted  to 
make  our  record  cleaner  and  fairer. 

Let  us  think,  too,  of  the  goodness  and  not 
of  the  meannesses  of  our  fellow  men.  If  we 
have  rubbed  up  against  cranky  individuals, 
if  our  lot  is  to  be  cast  with  those  who  thwart 

[IS] 


REAL    RELIGION 


and  fret  us,  let  us  put  over  against  such 
human  annoyances  those  pure  and  noble 
lives  with  which  we  also  may  come  in  con- 
tact from  day  to  day.  Be  thankful  on  waking 
that  this  old  world  still  holds  so  many  persons 
of  this  type.  We  may  not  this  day  touch 
many  of  them,  but  just  to  know  that  they 
are  somewhere  in  the  world  radiating  con- 
stantly truth  and  virtue  ought  to  inspirit 
us  as  we  rub  our  eyes,  struggle  into  our 
clothes,  and  face  again  the  old  routine. 

And  our  waking  thoughts  ought  surely  to 
include  some  recognition  of  the  divine 
protection  and  guidance  that  constantly 
surround  our  lives.  Phillips  Brooks  once 
voiced  his  wonder  as  to  how  men  could 
come  back  from  unconsciousness  to  the 
world  of  action  without  sending  their  thoughts 
upward  to  the  source  of  all  life  and  blessing. 
Some  families  still  maintain  the  beautiful 
custom  either  at  breakfast-table  or  else- 
where of  joining  in  some  simple  act  of  wor- 
ship. In  view  of  all  the  risks  and  exposures 
to  which  every  one  is  subject  every  day  of  his 
life,  and  in  view  of  the  limitations  of  one's 
strength  and  wisdom.  It  seems  only  natural 
and  right  to  claim  the  care  and  leadership 
of  a  power,  unseen  but  real,  that  holds  all 
[i61 


THOUGHTS    ON    WAKING 

humanity  in  its  grasp.  There  is  a  little 
prayer  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson's  which 
suits  itself  to  the  break  of  day  and  which, 
if  said  honestly  by  any  one,  is  sure  to  make 
the  waking  moments  peaceful  and  happy: 

"The  day  returns  and  brings  us  the  petty 
round  of  irritating  concerns  and  duties. 
Help  us  to  play  the  man.  Help  us  to 
perform  them  with  laughter  and  kind  faces. 
Let  cheerfulness  abound  with  industry.  Give 
us  to  go  blithely  on  our  business  all  this 
day.  Bring  us  to  our  resting  beds  weary  and 
content  and  undishonored.  And  grant  us  in 
the  end  the  gift  of  sleep." 


[17] 


TROLLEY-CAR  THEOLOGY 

JAMMED  together  on  the  front  of  an 
electric  car  the  other  afternoon  four 
of  us,  mainly  strangers  to  one  another, 
struck  up  an  informal  conversation.  We 
were  homeward  bound,  and  the  labors  of 
the  day  being  over,  and  the  anticipations 
of  the  evening  being  keen,  we  were  disposed 
to  a  little  more  familiarity  than  had  we  been 
headed  toward  our  tasks  at  the  day's  begin- 
ning. But  even  then  the  conversation  took 
a  somewhat  unexpected  turn. 

One  of  the  men  had  asked  me  about  a  cer- 
tain mutual  acquaintance,  and  I  had  told  him 
of  her  prostration  by  paralysis.  "What," 
said  he,  "has  that  saint  been  called  upon 
to  pass  under  the  harrow.^  Why,  I  supposed 
she  was  so  ripe  for  heaven,  so  free  from 
blemish  that  she  would  go  as  Enoch  or 
Elijah  did,  without  suffering  any  of  the  dis- 
agreeable processes  of  decay  and  death." 

"Yes,"  I  rejoined,  "least  of  all  women 
whom  I  know  does  she  seem  to  need  dis- 
ciplining at  the  hands  of  Providence.  It's 
pretty  hard  to  explain  mysteries  of  this 
[i8  1 


TROLLEY-CAR    THEOLOGY 

sort.  In  fact,  we  need  another  world  to 
right  up  the  many  injustices  that  we  witness 
here."  My  interlocutor  —  who  is  an  elderly 
man,  and  somewhat  sad  faced  —  went  on 
to  say  that  the  most  undeserving  here  seem 
often  to  experience  most  in  the  way  of 
sorrow  and  hardship,  while  as  to  the  other 
world  he  said,  "We  don't  know  anything 
about  that,  for  no  one  has  ever  come  back 
from  it." 

A  period  of  silence  followed  this  mournful 
observation  which  was  broken  by  the  motor- 
man's  bold  assertion,  ''One  man  has  come 
back." 

"Pretty  good  for  the  motor-man,"  said 
the  fourth  member  of  our  group,  a  jolly 
fellow  in  early  middle  life,  and  I  at  once 
took  it  upon  me  to  support  the  motor-man's 
contention,  saying,  "Yes,  indeed,  I  do  be- 
lieve that  one  man  came  back,  and  that 
the  world  has  not  clung  to  that  belief  for 
nineteen  centuries  in  vain,"  at  which  the 
jolly  stranger  said,  "Sure  enough,  it  can't 
be  that  all  that  is  best  in  civilization  and  art 
and  human  life  is  built  on  a  mere  dream." 

The  elderly  cynic,  while  not  disputing 
the  proposition,  began  to  comment  upon 
the  unsatisfactoriness  and  queerness  of  this 

[19] 


REAL    RELIGION 


human  world.  "Three  quarters  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  globe,"  said  he,  "have 
a  desperately  hard  time  to  get  along;  they 
have  scarcely  enough  to  eat  and  to  wear, 
while  the  other  quarter  have  enough  and 
to  spare,  and  some  of  them  more  than 
enough."  But  the  jovial  member  of  the 
quartet  would  not  let  such  a  remark  as 
that  go  unchallenged.  He  burst  out  with 
this  ejaculation,  "It's  a  bully  world." 
Whereat  I  ventured  to  say,  "Well,  it's  as 
good  a  world  as  any  of  us  ever  got  into," 
and  the  motor-man  said,  "  That's  so." 

By  this  time  we  were  nearing  the  transfer 
station  and  the  group  began  to  scatter, 
the  motor-man  remarking  in  his  cheery 
Irish  brogue,  as  we  said  good  night  to  him 
and  to  one  another,  "This  has  been  a  very 
interestin'  conversation." 

As  I  went  up  the  street  to  my  own  dwell- 
ing, I  mused  how  there  on  the  front  of 
the  car  the  chief  problems  of  theology  had 
focused  themselves.  We  four  men,  together 
for  half  an  hour  by  pure  accident,  had  in 
our  talk  reflected  what  is  going  on  in  the 
minds  of  people  everywhere  today  when 
once  they  stop  to  think  and  lay  bare  to 
one  another  their  inmost  convictions.      We 

[20l 


TROLLEY-CAR     THEOLOGY 

were  certainly  a  typical  modern  group. 
There  was  the  cynic  and  the  pessimist,  a 
man  who,  as  I  happen  to  know,  had  acquired 
a  good  deal  of  property,  but  who  looked 
forward  to  old  age  with  foreboding  and 
uncertainty  of  mind.  There  was  the  jolly, 
forward-looking  optimist,  who  refused  to 
be  disheartened  even  by  the  painful  facts 
of  life,  and  there,  too,  was  the  plain  man  of 
the  people,  readier  than  any  of  us  in  the 
group  to  profess  his  unstudied,  but  confident 
faith  that  "Once  a  man  came  back." 

I  shall  not  soon  forget  that  talk  on  the 
front  platform.  It  gave  me  hope  touching 
the  underlying  soundness  of  the  great  major- 
ity of  men  in  the  essentials  of  the  faith, 
and  the  words  that  will  echo  longest  in 
my  mind  are  these:  "There  was  once  a 
man  who  came  back"  and  "This  Is  a  bully 
world." 


[2il 


"AS   GOOD  AS  THE  AVERAGE" 

"T'M  no  saint,  but  Fm  as  good  as  the 
X  average."  How  frequently  a  man  says 
this,  either  to  appease  his  own  conscience 
or  to  justify  in  the  eyes  of  others  his  be- 
havior. On  the  lips  of  many  men  it  may 
be  a  true  assertion,  but  when  you  come  to 
think  the  matter  through,  is  it  really  worth 
saying.^     Is  it  any  kind  of  a  compliment.^ 

If  your  health  is  no  better  than  that  of 
the  average  man  it  is  nothing  to  boast  of, 
for  most  persons  have  ailments  or  physical 
defects  of  one  sort  or  another,  and  if  you 
are  no  more  prosperous  than  the  average 
man  you  are  certainly  far  from  being  well 
off.  Do  not  the  statistics  tell  us  that  a 
very  large  per  cent  of  the  men  who  go  into 
business  for  themselves  eventually  have  to 
make  an  assignment  to  their  creditors.^  The 
average  man  today  is  likely  to  be  hard  up; 
he  is  probably  more  than  ready  for  his 
wages  or  income  the  moment  they  are  due. 
Quite  likely  he  hardly  makes  both  ends 
meet.  Nor  is  the  average  man's  knowledge 
very  extensive  or  very  accurate,  and  when 
[22] 


"GOOD     AS     THE     AVERAGE" 

one  comes  to  the  field  of  morals,  I  heard 
some  one,  who  said  he  was  conversant  with 
the  situation,  declare  positively  that  the 
average  man  in  the  grocery  business  today 
is  dishonest.  Just  why  he  instanced  the 
grocery  business  as  over  against  boots  and 
shoes  or  stocks  I  cannot  tell,  unless  it  be 
that  in  the  first  mentioned  pursuit  it  is 
so  easy  to  sand  the  sugar  or  water  the 
molasses. 

I  think  this  far  too  severe  an  estimate, 
for  the  average  man  is  not  so  unworthy  a 
representative  of  our  common  humanity  but 
we  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  set  him  up  and 
compare  ourselves  with  him,  not  aiming 
to  surpass^  him  in  any  particular.  What 
he  ought  to  be  ambitious  for  is  to  bring  up 
the  general  average  of  mankind.  That  means 
that  we  must  be  exceptional  men,  for  there 
will  always  be  enough  to  lower  the  average, 
and  it  behooves  us  to  live  and  labor  on 
a  little  higher  plane  than  the  average 
fellow. 

A  standard  was  introduced  Into  this  world 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago  which  ought  to 
shame  the  man  who  runs  to  cover  under 
the  plea,  "Fm  as  good  as  the  average." 
It  set  up  a  lofty  but  by  no  means  an  im- 

[23] 


REAL    RELIGION 


possible  criterion  of  conduct.  "Don't  be 
satisfied  with  doing  good  to  those  who  treat 
you  squarely,  but  do  good  to  the  people 
who  are  mean  and  hateful  to  you.  Give 
not  merely  even  measure,  but  press  down 
the  contents  of  the  basket  and  even  let 
it  run  over.  Go  two  miles  with  a  man 
rather  than  one  if  he  needs  and  wants  you." 
It  is  this  doctrine  of  excess,  of  extra  service, 
of  exceptional  goodness  that  gives  glory 
to  human  life.  In  it  are  wrapped  up  all 
the  possibilities  of  noble  character.  Indeed, 
a  man  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  entered 
at  all  into  the  struggle  for  character  who 
does  not,  at  least  faintly,  apprehend  the 
fact  that  he  is  called  to  be,  not  an  average, 
but  an  exceptional  man. 

"Are  you  afraid  to  die.^"  asked  a  friend  of 
a  very  sick  man.  "No,"  was  the  reply,  "but 
I  am  ashamed  to  die."  "Why.?"  "Because 
I  haven't  been  a  first-class  Christian." 

If  we  really  see  life  as  it  is,  life  as  it  may 
become,  we  shall  never  again  dodge  the 
issue  by  saying  lightly,  "I'm  as  good  as 
the  average."  Let  us  rather  make  it  our 
solemn  aim  to  be,  with  divine  help,  a  little 
better  than  the  average  man,  to  walk  a 
little  more  erectly,   to  handle  our  finances 

[24] 


"GOOD  AS  THE  AVERAGE" 

a  little  more  honorably  and  wisely,  to  acquire 
more  useful  information,  and,  without  ever 
appearing  self-righteous,  to  be  exceptionally 
pure  and  true  and  helpful  and  magnanimous. 


[25] 


"THAT  LITTLE  STREAK  OF 
RELIGION" 

A  CHORUS  girl  who  had  encountered 
hard  luck  went  to  a  minister  for  sym- 
pathy and  help.  Now  the  men  and  women 
of  the  stage  do  not,  as  a  rule,  when  in  trouble 
resort  immediately  to  a  clergyman.  But  this 
particular  one  was  known  far  and  wide  for 
his  great  tenderness  of  heart  and  his  sym- 
pathy with  the  weak,  distressed,  and  tempted. 
He  received  the  actress  graciously,  as  he 
always  received  his  callers.  He  showed  such 
quick  understanding  of  her  situation  and  he 
appealed  with  such  tact  to  her  better  nature 
that  suddenly  the  girl  said,  "Well,  I  do  be- 
lieve there  is  a  little  streak  of  religion  in  me 
after  all,  though  it  is  buried  way  out  of 
sight."  It  might  have  been  years  since  she 
had  given  the  subject  any  consideration, 
but  now  an  exigency  had  arisen  which  made 
her  aware  that  the  deepest  thing  in  her 
nature  was  the  religious  element.  Not  all 
her  triumphs  and  not  all  her  failures  on  the 
stage  had  extinguished  within  her  this  vital 
spark. 

[26] 


"THAT    LITTLE    STREAK'' 

Yet  hers  was  no  abnormal  experience. 
Religion  is  in  the  inheritance  of  most  of 
us  and  in  the  training  of  many  of  us.  Many 
a  man  in  middle  life  will  tell  you  that  he 
was  brought  up  to  go  to  church  or  Sunday- 
school.  Even  if  he  has  become  utterly  in- 
different, he  cannot  altogether  shake  off  the 
influence  of  the  prayer  he  used  to  offer  at 
his  mother's  knee  or  of  the  Bible  that  had 
a  place  of  honor  in  his  early  home  or  of  his 
personal  interest  in  religion  in  former  times. 
Said  such  a  man  to  a  chance  acquaintance 
the  other  day,  "I  used  to  be  a  professor, 
but  I  don't  believe  in  God  any  more  or  in 
a  hereafter.  But  there  is  one  thing  that 
troubles  me.  I  have  a  little  daughter  and 
I  can't  teach  her  any  more  such  nonsense  as 
*Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep'  —  so  what 
can  I  tell  her.?"  "Tell  her,"  replied  the 
other  man,  himself  a  bluff  but  sincere  be- 
liever, "tell  her  to  go  to  the  devil,  for  she 
is  likely  to  go  that  way  with  you  believing 
as  you  do."  Drastic  counsel  was  this,  but 
it  is  sometimes  necessary  to  give  a  jolt  to 
the  man  who  is  so  cock-sure  of  his  infidelity 
that  he  forgets  his  own  past  and  forgets 
that  which  is  best  and  deepest  in  his  own 
nature. 

[27] 


REAL    RELIGION 


For  religion  is  in  our  very  blood.  Talk 
about  religion  perishing  from  off  the  face 
of  the  earth!  When  men  cease  to  appreciate 
the  masterpieces  of  art,  when  noble  music 
finds  in  them  no  response,  when  a  lovely 
landscape  fails  to  elicit  their  admiration, 
when  they  are  not  susceptible  to  the  appeal 
of  friendship,  then  and  not  till  then  will 
they  give  up  their  religion.  And  not  even 
then,  for  the  religious  instinct  is  a  deeper 
and  more  inalienable  part  of  the  human 
endowment  than  is  the  capacity  to  appreciate 
music  or  art  or  poetry  or  nature.  Religion 
is  in  the  blood  of  the  Caucasian  and  the 
African,  of  the  Christian  and  the  Moham- 
medan, of  the  Jew  and  the  Parsee.  Indeed 
there  is  sometimes  more  genuine  religion  in 
a  follower  of  a  so-called  heathen  religion 
than  in  some  nominal  Christians. 

We  are  not  talking  now  about  forms  and 
creeds,  about  denominations  and  isms.  We 
are  talking  of  that  which  underlies  all  expres- 
sion, and  our  appeal  is  not  in  the  interests 
of  any  one  religion  as  of  religion  pure  and 
simple.  It  is  not  for  me  to  dictate  what 
form  your  religion  shall  take,  but  simply  to 
suggest  that  "the  little  streak  of  religion" 
in  us  needs  to  be  brought  under  influences 

[28] 


"THAT    LITTLE    STREAK" 

that  make  for  its  strengthening  and  illumi- 
nation, and  to  be  put  to  work  in  the  field 
of  our  daily  activities  and  relationships. 

Why  should  any  of  us  wait  until  he  has 
hard  luck,  until  he  is  reduced  to  some  desper- 
ate situation,  before  he  discerns  and  confesses 
that  he  cannot  rid  himself,  that  he  would 
not  rid  himself,  of  his  religious  instinct? 
Why  not  at  once  decide  to  give  it  more 
constant  recognition  and  larger  scope? 


29 


TO  ONE  SOURED  ON  LIFE 

** XT  THAT  can  a  man  do  who  has  become 
VV  soured  on  life?"  That  question 
opens  the  door  into  a  great  subject,  for 
despite  the  fact  that  Americans  have  the 
reputation  of  being  the  happiest  and  most 
buoyant  people  of  the  world,  the  number 
of  those  wholly  or  partly  soured  on  life  is 
larger  than  is  at  first  supposed.  They  may 
not  have  gone  so  far  as  to  contemplate 
throwing  themselves  into  the  nearest  river, 
or  taking  a  dose  of  strychnine.  They  are 
hardly  ready  to  present  themselves  for 
treatment  at  any  anti-suicide  bureau;  but 
the  sweetness  and  charm  of  life  have  practi- 
cally vanished  for  them  and  they  radiate 
gloom  instead  of  sunshine  as  they  go  about 
the  world.  They  have  adopted  a  slower 
form  of  suicide.  What  word  may  be  spoken 
to  these  individuals  here  and  there  that 
shall  incite  them  to  make  one  more  desperate 
try  for  happiness  I 

It  ought  to  be  a  word  of  sympathy  first 
of  all.     Quite  likely  you  have  been  unjustly 
treated.     Some    supposed    friend    has    gone 
l30] 


TO    ONE    SOURED    ON     LIFE 

back  on  you.  Circumstances  over  which 
you  seem  to  have  had  no  control  have 
cramped  your  life.  Your  "luck,"  if  you 
choose  to  call  it  that,  has  been  harder  than 
that  of  your  neighbor.  But  does  it  all 
justify  you  in  settling  down  to  despair. f* 
Our  question  is  not  what  others  can  do 
for  you,  but  what  you  can  do,  and  my  first 
appeal  must  be  to  your  will-power.  Maybe 
you  need  a  kind  of  electric  shock  to  summon 
up  the  forces  of  personal  life  that  ought  to 
assert  themselves  in  a  man,  even  though 
things  have  gone  awry  with  him. 

Maybe,  too,  your  ideas  need  some  recon- 
struction. If  your  preconceived  program 
of  life  has  included  naught  but  pleasurable 
experiences;  if  you  have  grown  up  thinking 
that  you  ought  to  be  exempt  from  pain, 
disappointment,  reverses,  shabby  treatment 
by  others  —  then  it  is  high  time  that  you 
got  a  larger  view  of  the  universe;  a  higher 
ideal  of  existence  than  that  of  sitting  in 
easy  chairs  and  sipping  nectar  from  golden 
cups.  Not  to  have  any  hard  knocks  means 
flabby,  not  virile,  manhood.  You  hardly 
know  what  life  in  its  totality  is  until  you 
have  had  some  encounter  with  sorrow,  loss, 
or  disappointment.     But  your  sense  of  re- 

[31] 


REAL    RELIGION 


action  from  these  things  is  evidence  that 
life  is  meant  to  be  joyous  in  spite  of  trial. 
Now  go  one  step  further  and  believe  that 
life  is  meant  to  be  more  joyous  for  you  because 
of  your  afflictions,  and  set  yourself  resolutely 
to  discovering  the  good  at  the  heart  of  the 
evil. 

Try  the  nature  cure.  Go  out  these  fine 
spring  days  and  watch  the  clouds  floating 
over  the  sky.  Bare  your  head  to  the  breezes 
sweet  with  the  suggestion  of  flowers.  Take 
delight  in  the  bewitching  greenery  with 
which  shrubs  and  trees  and  meadows  are 
adorning  themselves.  A  bright  spring  morn- 
ing is  a  splendid  antidote  for  the  sour  spirit. 

Try  service.  Somebody  is  worse  off  than 
you.  Find  him  out  and  seek  to  alleviate 
his  lot.  Yes,  you  can  do  it  even  if  you 
aren't  a  city  missionary  or  a  social  settle- 
ment worker,  or  even  if  you  think  you  have 
no  knack  for  cheering  others  up.  Try  and 
you  will  be  surprised  how  that  faculty  of 
bearing  other  people's  burdens,  when  once 
put  at  work,  strengthens. 

Try  faith.  But  you  haven't  any,  you  say. 
Oh,  yes,  there  is  a  good  big  residuum  of 
faith  even  in  your  skeptical  mind  and  your 
downcast   heart.     Cling    to    it.     Nourish    it 

[32] 


TO    ONE    SOURED    ON     LIFE 

by  putting  it  in  contact  with  others  who  are 
trying  to  walk  by  faith.  Beheve  with  all 
your  might  what  you  do  believe  and  your 
faith  will  grow. 

It  ought  to  be  good-bye  from  this  day 
forward  to  the  sour  spirit,  for  the  gift  of 
existence  is  too  precious  a  one  to  fritter 
away  or  despise  under  any  circumstances. 
I  know  a  man  who  remarks  to  his  friends 
as  he  comes  in  to  dinner  every  night,  often 
after  a  hard  and  trying  day,  "The  world's 
a  great  go,  isn't  it.^"  Yes,  he  is  right,  even 
this  world  with  all  its  aches  and  pains  is 
a  "great  go,"  and  if  you  will  say  over  to 
yourself  every  morning  on  arising  the  little 
verse  that  follows,  I  am  ready  to  guarantee 
that  you  will  cease  to  be  soured  on  life: 

"How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living!     How  fit  to  employ- 
All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  for  ever  in  joy!" 


(33] 


THE  FUN  OF  BEGINNING  AGAIN 

SOON  after  the  San  Francisco  earth- 
quake, a  distinguished  physician  of 
that  city,  having  journeyed  to  another  part 
of  the  land,  was  telling  a  group  of  friends 
about  the  disaster.  He  dwelt  chiefly  upon 
what  had  befallen  others,  and  it  was  only 
incidentally  that  his  hearers  learned  that 
he  had  himself  lost  his  splendid  medical 
library  and  many  cases  of  valuable  surgical 
instruments,  while  his  professional  practise 
had  been  reduced  to  an  almost  non-paying 
basis.  When  the  members  of  the  group 
began  to  commiserate  him  on  his  personal 
losses,  he  cheerfully  remarked,  "Oh,  never 
mind  about  them!  I  shall  have  the  fun  of 
beginning  again." 

Such  tests  as  these  come  to  some  men 
like  a  stroke  out  of  the  clear  sky.  The 
artist  completes  a  picture  over  which  he 
has  toiled  long,  and  lo!  some  miscreant  or 
some  careless  person  daubs  it  in  a  way  that 
forever  destroys  its  beauty.  The  successful 
business  man  is  betrayed  by  some  trusted 
associate,    and    lo!    the    earnings    of    years 

[34] 


FUN  OF  BEGINNING  AGAIN 

are  suddenly  dissipated.  Now,  under 
such  circumstances,  how  do  men  behave? 
How  many  of  them  see  the  fun  of 
beginning  again?  Most  of  us  can  point 
to  personal  acquaintances,  who  may  have 
failed  disastrously  in  business,  but  who 
refused  to  be  downed.  Today  they  have 
recovered,  or  even  exceeded  their  former 
prosperity.  Adversity  acted  as  a  splendid 
spur.  They  felt  the  joyous  tingle  of  start- 
ing in  afresh,  and  proving  that  they  could 
succeed  even  after  the  world  had  passed 
the  superficial  verdict  that  they  had  failed. 

But  aside  from  special  tragic  disasters, 
is  it  not  true  that  every  one  engaged  in  busi- 
ness or  professional  life  must  in  the  ordinary 
courses  of  that  life  learn  to  appreciate  the 
fun  of  beginning  again?  Otherwise  they 
get  into  ruts,  and  as  some  one  has  wittily 
said,  "There  is  a  difference  of  only  one 
letter  between  *  groove'  and  *  grave.'"  It 
certainly  behooves  all  of  us  frequently  to 
prod  ourselves,  even  when  we  think  we  are 
going  ahead  fairly  well,  with  the  question, 
"Am  I  doing  my  best?  If  I  were  starting 
in  anew  today  on  my  career,  would  I  not 
display  more  inventiveness,  perseverance, 
enthusiasm    than    I    am    exhibiting    now?" 

[35] 


REAL    RELIGION 


This  is  the  way  in  which  men  get  to  the  top 
of  the  ladder.  With  the  apostle  Paul, 
they  say  to  themselves  every  morning,  "Not 
as  though  I  had  already  attained." 

Not  less  necessary  is  it  in  the  field  of 
daily  human  relationships  to  be  alive  to 
the  fun  of  beginning  again.  The  friction, 
the  misunderstandings,  the  collisions  that 
mar  many  a  home,  would  be  obviated  if 
the  members  of  the  family  circle  conceived 
of  their  contact  day  by  day  as  a  chance  to 
better  the  attitude  and  behavior  of  yester- 
day. Even  kind  and  wise  parents  may  grow 
in  kindness  and  in  wisdom.  Of  course,  if 
one  thinks  he  knows  it  all,  there  is  no  hope 
for  such  a  conceited  parent;  but  if  he  is 
eager  to  discharge  his  parental  duties  in 
a  way  that  will  forever  put  the  stamp  of 
an  earnest  personality  upon  plastic  children, 
then  he  will  say  to  himself  every  morning, 
**  Fatherhood  is  a  blessed  responsibility.  I 
don't  feel  as  if  I  had  mastered  the  fine  art. 
I  am  going  to  see  today  if  I  can't  begin  all 
over  again."  By  night-time  the  children 
will  notice  the  difference  and  be  saying  to 
one  another,  "What  has  got  into  father.?" 

Would  that  children,  too,  might  sometime 
start  on  a  new  tack  with  reference  to  their 

[36] 


FUN  OF   BEGINNING  AGAIN 

parents.  It  is  not  viciousness  but  thought- 
lessness that  makes  them  forgetful  of  the 
delicate  courtesies  which  make  any  home 
an  Eden.  Maybe  these  lines  will  fall  under 
the  eye  of  some  son  away  from  home,  or 
some  daughter,  who  ought,  before  sleeping 
tonight,  to  make  glad  the  heart  of  a  distant 
parent  by  a  loving  filial  letter.  So,  around 
the  entire  circle  of  relationships,  how  much 
better  we  all  should  do  if  we  were  suffi- 
ciently conscious  of  our  past  failures  and 
sufficiently  aware  of  our  potentialities  to  be 
willing  to  say  to  ourselves,  "I  am  going  to 
begin  all  over  again  and  see  if  I  can't  live 
with  this  or  that  person  more  happily  and 
effectively.^" 

And  there  is  one  even  higher  relationship 
in  reference  to  which  we  ought  to  find  the 
joy  of  beginning  anew.  We  have  made  a 
poor  fist  of  religion,  many  of  us.  Perhaps 
we  have  acquired  just  enough  to  make  us 
miserable,  but  never  mind;  we  can  begin 
over  again  tomorrow,  today.  And  even  if 
we  have  failed  once,  twice,  or  thrice,  we  can 
make  a  success  of  it  for  all  time  to  come. 
We  can  if  we  only  think  we  can. 


[37 


THE  CONTAGION  OF  GOOD  CHEER 

CAN  a  person  be  cheerful  even  if  he  is 
not  happy?'*  asked  a  bright  young 
woman  the  other  day.  "And  ought  he  to 
feign  cheerfulness  when  he  is  at  heart  un- 
happy?" Now  this  particular  young  woman 
is  one  of  the  most  constantly  cheerful  per- 
sons I  ever  knew.  It  seems  as  if  it  were  as 
easy  and  natural  for  her  to  be  sunny  faced 
from  morn  till  eve  as  for  a  good  many  of 
the  rest  of  us  to  be  glum.  And  yet  she 
leads  a  rather  monotonous  life,  most  of 
her  time  and  strength  being  given  to  the 
care  of  two  lively  and  sometimes  exacting 
little  children.  But  her  question  made  me 
think  for  the  first  time  that  what  those 
about  her  have  always  considered  a  rare 
natural  gift  may  be  not  a  matter  of  tem- 
perament only,  but  of  patient  cultivation 
also.  We  see  only  the  beautiful  product. 
She  alone  and  God  know  the  self-discipline 
and  the  struggle.  And  though  there  may 
be  times  when  she  has  to  feign  happiness,  I 
really  think  that  she  has  come  into  the  pos- 
session of  more  than  the  ordinary  person's 
share  of  the  genuine  article. 

[38I 


GOOD    CHEER 


And  so  I  would  say,  "If  you  can't  be 
happy,  seem  to  be  happy,  and  the  chances 
are  that  you  will  soon  be  really  happy."  At 
least  we  can  imitate  the  man  who  early  in 
life  established  the  rule  that  he  would  force 
himself  to  be  happy  until  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  If  he  succeeded  up  to  that  point, 
the  problem  took  care  of  itself  usually  for 
the  rest  of  the  day.  There  was  once  a  man 
of  whom  the  dwellers  in  the  same  house 
said  that  he  always  came  down  to  breakfast 
looking  as  if  he  had  just  inherited  a  fortune. 

One  reason  why  children  are  so  charming 
is  that  they  are  happy,  as  a  rule.  A  merry 
child  in  a  household  radiates  good  cheer.  An 
English  poet  speaks  of  a  glad  and  winsome 
child  as 

"A  silver  stream 
Breaking  with  laughter  from  the  lake  divine 
Whence  all  things  flow." 

Why  should  a  man  or  woman  outgrow  this 
mood  of  good  cheer .^  The  crucial  question 
is.  What  kind  of  a  front  will  we  show  to  the 
world.'*  Ought  it  not  to  be,  for  our  own 
sakes,  an  attitude  of  hope  and  cheer  .^  It  is 
good  for  a  man  every  now  and  then  to 
shake  himself  free  from  the  things  that  de- 
press  and   annoy  him   and    say  resolutely, 

[39] 


REAL    RELIGION 


"Uncertain  as  is  the  way  before  me,  un- 
pleasant as  are  my  surroundings,  difficult 
as  is  my  problem,  I  refuse  to  let  the  diffi- 
culties and  irritations  sour  my  spirit,  spoil 
all  my  good  times,  blind  me  to  the  glories 
of  earth  and  sea  and  sky,  deaden  me  to  the 
simple  delights  of  every  day,  the  music  of 
children's  laughter,  the  solace  of  great  books, 
the  blessings  of  friendship,  the  splendid 
achievements  of  the  men  and  women  who 
are  helping  the  world,  or  finally  and  chiefly 
to  the  eternal  goodness  of  God  the  Father 
Almighty." 

Such  an  attitude  is  of  incalculable  value 
to  the  man  himself.  Think,  too,  what  it 
means  to  others.  I  worked  once  in  an  office 
with  a  young  man  of  moderate  abilities,  but 
who  was  the  incarnation  of  sunshine.  The 
more  brilliant  men  there  were  respected, 
but  he  was  loved  by  all  from  manager  to 
office  boy,  and  when  he  left  to  take  another 
position  there  was  a  general  feeling  of  loss 
and  of  gloom.  Coming  out  of  a  restaurant 
last  week  my  companion  called  my  atten- 
tion to  the  young  man  who  helps  people 
find  seats  and  remarked,  "He'll  be  President 
someday."  "Why.?"  I  asked.  "Because  he 
is  always  so  pleasant,"  was  the  reply. 

[40] 


GOOD    CHEER 


I  came  across  this  new  beatitude  recently 
with  which  I  close,  "Blessed  are  the  cheer 
makers,  for  they  shall  be  called  sons  of  the 
morning." 


[41 


THE  LARGE  IN  THE  LITTLE 

HE  had  gained  a  capacity  for  getting 
great  and  far-reaching  happiness 
from  the  exquisite  Httle  joys  of  Hfe."  Thus 
the  hero  of  a  short  story  In  one  of  our  current 
magazines  is  characterized  by  the  author, 
and  what  a  splendid  thing  it  is  to  be  able  to 
say  that  either  of  a  man  In  a  story  or  a  man 
in  real  life.  When  you  have  reached  the 
point  where  you  do  not  need  a  rare  piece 
of  good  fortune  or  a  trip  to  Europe  or  a 
unique  relationship  to  the  great  and  mighty 
of  the  earth  to  make  you  happy  you  have 
mastered  the  secret  of  contented  and  fruit- 
ful living.  When  the  play  of  the  sunshine 
across  your  desk,  the  laughter  of  a  little 
child,  the  cheery  greeting  of  a  friend  who 
meets  and  passes  you  In  the  crowd,  a  page 
out  of  a  new  book,  or  any  one  of  the  com- 
paratively trifling  experiences  which  befall 
you  between  sunrise  and  sunset  can  make 
you  deeply  and  unfelgnedly  happy  you  can 
bid  defiance  to  all  the  black  bats  of  fear 
and  trouble  which  hover  about  your  daily 
pathway. 

[42] 


LARGE    IN    THE    LITTLE 

The  little  things  that  together  comprise 
the  life  of  a  single  day  ought  to  yield  us  joy. 
In  the  same  story  from  which  I  have  quoted 
the  author  refers  to  the  great  happiness 
which  comes  "from  the  blessed  continuance 
of  the  unnoticed  daily  good."  Whenever 
the  routine  looks  bare  and  tedious  to  us 
let  us  think  how  we  should  feel  if  something 
interposed  to  bring  it  to  a  sharp  conclusion. 
If  some  illness  or  disability  prevents  one 
from  going  to  his  daily  task,  how  he  yearns 
for  a  return  to  the  former  routine.  Pray, 
is  it  nothing  to  you  that  you  arose  this 
morning  in  health,  that  you  can  take  up 
your  duties  in  the  full  possession  of  your 
reason,  that  you  have  some  honest,  profit- 
able work  'to  do  in  God's  great  working 
world.?  The  other  day  a  well-known  Ameri- 
can authoress  was  burned  out.  But  instead 
of  crying  over  the  catastrophe  she  wrote 
as  follows:  "I  lost  nearly  everything  — 
priceless  books,  all  my  note-books  of  years 
of  work.     Well,  to  be  alive  and  well  is  good." 

One  can  harvest,  too,  a  crop  of  joys 
by  being  responsive  to  the  beauty  and  order 
of  the  universe  in  which  we  live.  An  ele- 
vator boy  said  the  other  day,  "I  ought 
to  be  thankful  that  as  my  car  moves  from 

[43] 


REAL    RELIGION 


floor  to  floor  I  can  get  such  frequent  glimpses 
of  the  sunshine  and  the  sky."  How  foolish 
we  are  to  fail  to  notice  the  loveliness  of 
tiny  things  in  nature,  the  blending  of  colors 
in  the  violet,  the  glory  of  a  single  star,  the 
thrilling  song  which  the  little  bird  pours 
forth.  You  can  connect  with  many  of  these 
sources  of  joy  without  hardly  stirring  from 
your  tracks,  only  there  must  be  the  ear 
to  listen,  the  eye  to  see,  the  mind  to  appre- 
ciate, but  if  you  are  absorbed  in  the  fluctua- 
tions of  the  stock  market  or  the  perplexities 
of  housekeeping  you  are  likely  to  pass  them 
all  by  as  too  small  for  consideration. 

The  loves  of  our  life  may  make  us  pro- 
foundly happy  and  true  love  expresses  itself 
in  a  hundred  little  ways.  What  you  really 
love  about  your  little  boy  is  not  merely  the 
man  that  you  see  he  is  going  to  be  by  and 
by,  but  the  fact  that  he  toddles  toward  the 
door  the  moment  he  hears  your  key  in  the 
lock  and  gives  an  exultant  shout  when  he 
feels  your  arms  about  him.  The  man  who 
postpones  the  pleasure  that  he  is  to  get 
out  of  his  kinship  and  friendship  to  the 
time  when  he  can  sit  down  and  take  in  fully 
and  scientifically  the  dimensions  of  that 
love  makes  a  vital  mistake.     Learn  to  enjoy 

[44] 


LARGE    IN    THE    LITTLE 

your  children,  your  home,  and  your  friends 
as  you  go  along. 

And  it  is  marvelous,  too,  how  the  little 
services  for  others  react  and  pour  a  flood 
of  joy  into  your  life.  That  is  the  delight 
of  doing  something  for  the  child  —  a  penny 
present  often  counts  for  as  much  in  his 
eyes  as  a  ten  thousand  dollar  check.  And 
people  generally  are  helped  more  than  you 
realize  by  a  small  offering  on  your  part 
provided  your  heart  goes  with  it.  And 
the  moment  that  we  realize  how  we  have 
served  another's  need,  another  fountain  of 
happiness  is  opened  in  our  own  hearts. 

God  put  us  in  this  world  to  be  happy. 
Philosopher^  have  fought  over  the  propo- 
sition whether  virtue  or  happiness  is  the 
main  end  of  living,  but  no  system  of  ethics 
leaves  us  any  right  to  be  gloomy,  and  even 
that  stiff  old  theological  document  known 
as  the  Westminster  Catechism  affirms  that 
one  of  the  chief  ends  of  men  is  to  enjoy  God 
forever.  But  if  we  are  going  to  enjoy  God 
and  heaven  by  and  by  we  must  establish 
at  once  here  a  habit  of  forcing  little  things 
to  yield  us  their  proper  meed  of  delight. 


[45 


RUNNING   BY   THE    SIGNALS 

NO  railroad  accidents  are  more  lamen- 
table or  inexcusable  than  those  arising 
from  neglect  of  signals.  For  as  our  systems 
are  organized  today  each  trainman  is  sup- 
posed to  know  what  each  green  light  and 
each  red  light  and  every  other  warning 
device  means,  and  upon  his  prompt  and 
thorough  obedience  depend  the  lives  and 
property  of  those  who  have  entrusted  them- 
selves to  the  railway  companies  for  safe 
transportation.  And  when  a  man,  either 
through  carelessness  or  wilfulness,  disregards 
a  signal  he  nullifies  the  proper  working  out 
of  a  carefully  planned  schedule  and  often 
brings  terrible  consequences  upon  himself, 
and  others. 

We  are  all  quick  to  condemn  the  recreant 
engineer  or  switchman,  but  when  it  comes 
to  the  sphere  of  our  own  lives  we  daily  run 
by  the  signals  with  hardly  a  thought  of 
what  we  are  doing.  The  course  of  life 
resembles  a  railroad  track.  We  start  at 
a  given  point  and  are  headed  toward  the 
terminus  at   the  other  end  of  the  line,  but 

[46] 


RUNNING    BY    SIGNALS 

as  we  rush  along  how  numerous  are  the 
chances  for  derailment  and  disaster!  Yet 
as  we  speed  forward,  there  are  placed  along 
the  track  at  certain  intervals  warning  and 
admonishing  signals.  We  are  told  when 
to  slow  up  and  when  to  quicken  our  pace 
and  when  to  halt  altogether.  There  is  one 
class  of  signals  for  children  and  another  for 
young  men  and  young  women  and  another 
for  persons  in  middle  life  and  still  another 
for  the  aged,  but  no  period  of  life  is  without 
its  signals. 

The  warnings  that  relate  to  our  physical 
well-being  are  many  and  constant.  The 
baby  toddles  up  to  the  stove,  puts  its  fingers 
on  the  hot  cover,  and  cries  out  with  pain. 
And  that  experience  serves  as  a  signal  to 
remind  the  child  perhaps  for  all  time  that 
stoves  with  fires  in  them  are  always  hot  and 
are  always  to  be  let  alone.  Through  the 
limbs  and  bodies  of  older  people  dart  now 
and  then  significant  pains  or  they  find 
themselves  sleepless  at  night  or  craving 
strong  stimulants  or  are  irritable  and  fretful. 
Signals  they  are  which  nature,  overdriven 
or  neglected,  hangs  out  to  tell  us  that  we 
are  doing  violence  to  our  bodies,  which 
are  something  more  than  so  much  muscle, 

[47] 


REAL    RELIGION 


bone,  and  tissue.  They  are  veritable  temples 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  signals  mean  that 
it  is  time  to  slow  up,  to  reconstruct  our 
methods,  to  consider  whether  we  are  doing 
the  fair  thing  by  ourselves  in  point  of  diet, 
exercise,  and  rest. 

As  we  mingle  with  our  fellow  men  we  get 
a  variety  of  helpful  signals  that  if  heeded 
may  lead  us  to  a  stricter  watch  upon  habits 
and  actions.  An  unexpectedly  large  bill 
comes  in.  Your  feeling  of  irritation  is  per- 
haps the  token  that  you  are  living  beyond 
your  means  or  are  too  socially  ambitious. 
Somebody  jokes  you  about  your  fondness 
for  somebody  else's  wife.  It's  only  a  joke 
made  in  good  temper,  and  yet  it  sets  you 
thinking  and  you  become  more  circumspect. 

What  signals  does  a  man  get  from  time 
to  time  touching  the  state  and  prospects 
of  his  soul.^  Some  Sunday  morning  your 
little  child  comes  to  you  and  says,  "Papa, 
why  don't  you  ever  go  to  church  with  us?" 
The  blunt  question  rather  startles  you,  and 
instead  of  answering  her  directly  you  repeat 
the  question  silently  to  yourself.  Or  maybe 
you  are  a  churchgoer,  but  the  sermons  and 
the  hallowed  associations  fail  to  touch  and 
inspire  you  as  they  used  to  do.     It  is  pos- 

[48] 


RUNNING    BY    SIGNALS 

sible  that  the  minister  is  becoming  dull,  but 
it  is  more  likely  that  your  mind  is  so  crusted 
over  with  schemes  for  getting  rich  that  the 
arrow  from  the  preacher's  quiver  cannot 
pierce  to  the  spot  where  you  really  live. 
Nothing  is  more  pathetic  in  human  life 
than  the  increasing  insensibility  of  many 
men  absorbed  in  business  and  pleasure  to 
the  appeal  of  higher  interests,  their  unsus- 
ceptibility  to  the  higher  forms  of  literature, 
music,  and  art,  their  indifference  to  Jesus 
Christ. 

But  in  the  gracious  ordering  of  life  there 
are  signals  all  along  the  way.  And  they 
mean  that  One  is  trying  to  communicate 
with  us  who  has  more  knowledge  than  we 
and  who  wants  to  help  us  avoid  pitfalls 
and  snares.  He  knows  the  track  ahead  of 
us  as  we  cannot  know  it,  and  he  would  save 
us  from  plunging  headlong  to  wreck  and 
ruin. 


[49] 


THE  BURIED  LIFE 

But  often  in  the  world's  most  crowded  streets, 
But  often  in  the  din  of  strife, 
There  rises  an  unspeakable  desire 
After  the  knowledge  of  our  buried  life. 

THUS  Matthew  Arnold  depicts  the 
yearning  which  now  and  then  comes 
to  a  man  for  an  earlier  mood,  a  former 
attitude,  a  lost  experience  vanished,  but 
not  forgotten  —  for  the  moment  out  of 
reach,  but  not  altogether  irrecoverable. 

What  have  you  done  with  the  best  part 
of  you,  my  friend?  Perhaps  you  do  not 
realize  the  fact,  but  you  have  practically 
dug  a  grave  and  deposited  therein  the  thing 
that  was  finest  and  purest  in  you.  Upon 
it,  as  the  years  have  come  and  gone,  you  have 
spread  layer  after  layer  of  interest  in  lesser 
matters,  and  now  that  former  self  is  stifling 
for  breath. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  sweet  and 
simple  satisfaction  of  the  home  meant  a 
good  deal  to  you;  when  you  would  shorten 
your  luncheon-hour  in  order  that  you  might 
get  home  in  season  to  toss  the  baby  in  your 
[so] 


THE    BURIED    LIFE 

arms,  or  to  have  a  romp  with  the  children, 
or  to  spend  the  first  half-hour  after  supper 
in  reading  some  profitable  book  with  your 
wife.  But  as  the  cares  of  this  world  have 
thickened,  and  the  deceitfulness  of  riches 
and  the  struggle  for  them  have  grown  upon 
you,  the  home-seeking  and  home-making 
instinct  has  become  dulled  in  you.  You 
aim  still  to  furnish  the  means  of  support 
for  the  family  and  to  make  them  as  ample 
as  possible,  but  your  children  miss  the  direct 
touch  of  your  personality  upon  them,  your 
wife  longs  for  the  old,  happy,  close  com- 
radeship, and  children  and  wife  both  are 
beginning  to  show  to  others  the  lack  of  just 
such  an  influence  as  the  father  and  husband 
alone  can  bring. 

Do  you  remember  the  time  when  the 
sound  of  "My  Country  'Tis  of  Thee,"  or 
"The  Star  Spangled  Banner,"  played  by 
a  marching  band  thrilled  you  to  the  finger- 
tips.^ Citizenship  meant  a  great  deal  to 
you  in  those  days.  You  did  not  care  simply 
to  play  the  game  of  politics  and  to  get 
your  share  of  the  offices,  but  you  did  work 
hard  to  get  the  right  men  into  office,  to  keep 
the  standard  of  public  service  high,  to 
serve  the  nation,  the  state,  the  community 

[51] 


REAL    RELIGION 


in  ways  accessible  to  you,  because  you 
believed  that  patriotism  means  not  simply 
going  to  war  in  behalf  of  native  land,  but 
in  times  of  peace,  vigilance  and  attention 
to  the  prosaic  details  that  make  for  the 
welfare  of  the  people,  that  keep  the  water 
system  pure,  the  schools  and  libraries  up 
to  par,  the  moral  atmosphere  free  from 
harmful  elements.  But  somehow  you  have 
today  lost  all  interest  in  practical  or  theo- 
retical politics.  Caucus  night  finds  you  at 
home  instead  of  at  the  booth.  You  take  a 
rather  pessimistic  view  of  politics  in  general. 
It  is  too  "nasty"  for  you  to  soil  your  hands 
with. 

Religion  once  had  a  charm  for  you.  It 
seemed  to  offer  an  explanation  of  the  mys- 
teries of  this  life;  it  furnished  inspiration 
for  manly  living  day  by  day.  You  felt  the 
contagion  of  noble  lives  lived  under  the 
influence  of  religion  and  rejoiced  to  feel 
yourself  part  of  that  noble  company  who 

"  Through  life's  long  days  of  strife 
Still  chant  their  morning  song," 

but  the  zest  and  power  of  religion  have  some- 
how disappeared.  Not  merely  that  you 
have  ceased  going  to  church  regularly, 
or  if  you  go  you   do  so    perfunctorily,  but 

[52] 


THE    BURIED    LIFE 

you  are  aware  that  the  fires  of  a  sensitive, 
religious  experience  no  longer  glow. 

Too  bad,  indeed,  is  it  that  these  varied 
types  of  buried  life  exist  all  about  us. 
Those  rare,  beautiful  growths  of  other  years 
needed  to  be  tended  and  not  to  be  choked, 
and  it  is  not  their  fault  that  they  have  been 
merely  suffocated  by  "other  things  entering 
in"  and  choking  them.  But  it  is  not  too 
late  to  resurrect  them.  The  spring  is  here 
again.  A  great  many  things  that  we 
thought  were  dead  are  now  awakening  to 
new  life.  You  can  never  be  sure  that  what 
you  thought  had  gone  forever  is  beyond 
reviving.  Give  that  which  was  best  and 
still  is  best  in  you  a  fresh  chance.  Remove 
the  layers  of  worldliness,  selfishness,  pride, 
ambition  that  weigh  down  upon  the  buried 
life.  Give  it  light  and  air  and  a  fair  chance 
and  see  how  wondrously  beautiful  and  strong 
it  yet  can  become. 


[S3] 


THE  DRUMMER'S  SUNDAY 

MY  professional  duties  involve  the 
spending  of  a  Sunday  occasionally 
in  a  hotel  in  some  unfamiliar  city  or 
town.  Invariably  I  find  myself  in  the  com- 
panionship of  a  number  of  traveling  men. 
Agreeable,  straightforward  gentlemen  these 
"drummers"  are,  and  many  an  interesting 
and  profitable  talk  I  have  had  with  them 
at  table  or  in  the  lobby.  These  knights  of 
the  gripsack  carry  keen  eyes.  They  know 
this  country  well  and  human  nature  still 
better,  and  they  have  a  racy  way  of  setting 
forth  their  observations  and  opinions. 

I  watch  with  special  interest  to  see  how 
they  observe  Sunday.  Very  few  of  them 
fail  to  differentiate  it  from  week-days.  Some 
of  them  keep  it  as  strictly  as  I  do  myself. 
But  in  the  case  of  the  majority  perhaps  this 
is  about  the  program:  a  late  rising  and  a 
sauntering  into  the  dining-room  for  break- 
fast about  as  late  as  the  law  permits,  then 
the  Sunday  papers  with  a  cigar  and  a  chat 
consume  most  of  the  hours  until  dinner. 
And  when  that  substantial  meal  is  over 
another  cigar,  some  more  conversation,  quite 

[54] 


THE    DRUMMER'S     SUNDAY 

likely  a  nap  or  a  walk  or  both,  and  before 
the  day  ends,  a  budget  of  letters,  almost 
invariably  one  to  "the  house"  reporting 
last  week's  business,  while  in  all  probability 
the  route  for  the  coming  days  has  to  be 
sketched  out  and  notifications  sent  on 
ahead.  So  the  day  slips  by  with  a  mixture 
of  rest  and  business  and  pleasure  and  off 
they  go  Sunday  night  or  Monday  morning 
to  "green  fields  and  pastures  new,"  which 
means  in  plain  prose  to  warehouses,  shops 
and  factories,  and  the  everlasting  effort  to 
sell,  sell,  sell. 

My  first  feeling  with  regard  to  these  enter- 
prising fellows  is  one  of  pity  for  their  enforced 
and  often  prolonged  absence  from  home. 
Some  of  them  get  used  to  it  and  some  of 
them  do  not,  and  the  latter,  I  think,  are 
less  to  be  pitied  than  the  former.  Once 
in  a  while  I  see  a  drummer  detach  himself 
from  a  group  of  fellow  travelers  and  make 
for  the  long-distance  telephone  booth.  In 
due  time  he  emerges  with  a  fond  and  happy 
look  in  his  eyes,  for  he  has  been  saying  good 
night  to  the  youngsters  perhaps  two  hundred 
miles  away  and  has  been  listening  to  the 
voice  of  the  woman  whom  he  most  loves  to 
hear  speak. 

[S5] 


REAL    RELIGION 


Blessed  be  the  long-distance  telephone! 
It  has  saved  many  a  homesick  man  from 
utter  despair,  but  it  is  rather  expensive,  and 
in  lieu  of  that  a  good  fat  letter  started  home- 
ward on  Sunday  will  not  only  bless  its  recip- 
ients, but  react  helpfully  on  the  writer.  No 
drummer  ought  to  omit  this.  And  he  ought 
to  try  to  make  it  as  breezy  and  hopeful  as 
possible,  for  hard  as  it  is  to  be  away  from  his 
dearest  ones,  it  is  no  less  hard  for  the  "little 
woman"  who  stays  by  the  stuff  and  perhaps 
for  the  "  kiddies  "  too. 

And  how  about  getting  out  the  Bible 
from  the  gripsack?  Only  the  other  Saturday 
night  I  was  delighted  to  hear  a  group  of 
traveling  men  in  a  hotel  corridor  talking, 
not  politics  or  football,  but  telling  each  other 
what  they  thought  about  the  Bible.  Several 
were  brave  enough  to  declare  their  belief 
that  it  contained  a  vast  amount  of  sound 
sense.  "  What  a  wonderful  leader  and  states- 
man Moses  was,"  remarked  one  In  the  group. 
"Yes,"  chimed  in  another.  "And  that 
man  Solomon  knew  what  he  was  talking 
about  when  he  wrote  the  Proverbs."  He 
who  thinks  the  Bible  an  uninteresting  and 
outworn  book  is  profoundly  ignorant,  and 
if  you  want  something  that  will  make  your 

[56] 


THE    DRUMMER'S    SUNDAY 

Sundays  brighter  and  better  just  get  out  your 
old  Bible  and  start  in  almost  anywhere. 

Church?  Well,  we  don't  know  about 
that.  But  some  traveling  men  do  go  and 
they  wouldn't  give  up  the  habit  for  anything. 
They  will  even  sacrifice  an  hour  or  two  in  bed 
for  it.  Enterprising  churches  post  notices 
in  hotel  lobbies  or  send  personal  invitations 
to  traveling  men,  but  even  if  the  churches 
are  sleepy  you  can  get  good  from  public 
worship  and  the  chances  are  that  if  you 
will  go  half-way  you  will  find  a  cordial 
welcome.  A  friend  of  mine,  a  drummer, 
was  sitting  one  Sunday  afternoon  in  a  western 
hotel  and  suddenly  he  burst  out  with  this 
remark,  "Boys,  let's  all  go  to  church  to- 
night." The  word  was  passed  around  and 
by  seven  o'clock  twenty-five  men  filed  out 
of  the  front  door  and  made  their  way  to 
the  nearest  church.  What  a  sensation  they 
created  as  they  were  ushered  to  the  best 
seats  on  the  broad  aisle!  When  the  con- 
tribution-box came  around  each  man,  by 
previous  agreement,  put  in  a  dollar  bill. 
They  haven't  even  now  stopped  talking  in 
that  church  about  those  drummers  and  their 
wonderful  and  inspiriting  visit. 


57 


FIXED  IDEAS 

WE  are  hearing  frequently  today  of 
"fixed  ideas."  The  term  usually 
has  an  unpleasant  savor.  It  stands  for 
certain  unfortunate  notions  that  take  posses- 
sion of  men's  minds  and  hold  them  captive. 
Doctors  and  ministers  are  constantly  thrown 
in  contact  with  people  thus  unhappily 
obsessed.  A  clergyman  told  me  the  other 
day  that  a  man  had  been  to  him  to  try  and 
get  relief  from  the  thought  that  the  spirit 
of  a  certain  dead  drunkard  had  gotten  hold 
of  him.  Other  nervous  sufferers  brood  over 
this  or  that  real  or  fancied  trouble.  This 
man,  who  now  has  money  in  the  bank,  is 
sure  that  he  is  going  to  die  in  the  poorhouse. 
That  woman  thinks  her  husband  has  stopped 
loving  her.  That  man  grieves  over  a  sin 
committed  twenty  years  ago. 

The  usual  method  of  treating  these  victims 
of  painful  fixed  ideas  is  to  try  and  inject  into 
the  mind  a  counter-irritant  in  the  form  of 
some  cheerful,  hope-laden  thought,  trusting 
that  it  will  in  time  drive  out  the  evil  spirits. 
May  it  not  be  a  good  plan  for  all  of  us  before 
[S8] 


FIXED    IDEAS 


we  become  neurasthenics  and  while  we  are 
in  a  normal  physical  and  mental  condition 
to  establish  in  our  minds  certain  ideas  of 
such  positive  strength  and  worth  that  they 
will  preempt  every  nook  and  cranny  and 
make  it  impossible  for  malign  and  distress- 
ing thoughts  to  find  entrance,  much  less 
lodgment? 

Now  we  do  not  have  to  manufacture  such 
ideas  or  to  search  far  and  wide  for  them. 
We  need  not  start  an  independent  intellec- 
tual factory  and  store  it  with  notions  purely 
of  our  own  production,  that  will  not  bear  the 
test  of  the  world's  scrutiny.  We  have  but 
to  recognize  and  accept  what  has  approved 
itself  to  the  judgment  of  the  centuries,  what 
at  the  bar  of  reason  today  stands  forth  as 
the  truest  and  finest  thought  that  the  hu- 
man mind  can  cherish.  Some  glorious  ideas 
may  be  said  to  be  fixed  in  the  thinking  of 
mankind;  not  that  every  individual  holds 
them  tenaciously,  but  that  they  are  widely 
and  increasingly  current  and  that  they  are 
held  most  strongly  by  the  prophets,  the 
poets,  and  the  moral  leaders  of  the  race. 

The  intrinsic  worth  of  goodness  is  a  fixed 
idea.  Men  almost  universally  recognize  the 
sharp  line  between  good  and  evil.     They  be- 

[59] 


REAL    RELIGION 


lieve  that  the  clean,  straight  life  is  vastly  to 
be  preferred  to  its  opposite.  They  have  come 
to  agree  with  the  great  English  preacher, 
Frederick  W.  Robertson,  when  he  says: 
"Were  there  no  God  and  no  future  life, 
even  then,  it  would  be  better  to  be  true 
than  to  be  false,  to  be  pure  than  to  be 
impure,  to  be  generous  than  to  be  selfish.'' 
Wild  horses  cannot  drag  from  the  mind  of 
man  the  idea  that  goodness  Is  the  great,  the 
supreme  test  of  human  life. 

The  idea  of  immortality  has  also  fixed 
itself  in  the  thinking  of  mankind.  We 
revolt  from  the  materialism  that  regards 
death  as  extinction  of  personality.  When- 
ever we  lay  our  dead  away,  it  is  with  the 
confident  hope  that  they  have  not  been 
resolved  into  nothingness.  When  we  look 
forward  to  our  own  certain  end  we  believe 
that  it  will  be  but  the  beginning  of  an 
ampler  existence.  Prove  it  we  cannot.  It 
Is  enough  to  feel  that  "we  are  mightier 
than  we  know." 

Another  fixed  idea  is  the  Idea  of  God. 
It  Is  vastly  harder  to  believe  in  no  God  at 
all  than  to  believe  In  some  kind  of  a  God. 
Without  him  the  universe  Is  unintelligible, 
and  human  life  a  mystery  and  a  mockery. 
[6ol 


FIXED    IDEAS 


You  may  burn  men  at  the  stake,  you  may 
strip  them  of  all  their  possessions,  but  you 
cannot  keep  them  from  believing  in  God. 

The  preeminence  of  Jesus  Christ  is  still 
another  fixed  idea.  However  theories  of 
his  person  may  differ,  the  modern  world  is 
practically  at  one  in  its  appreciation  of  the 
character  of  Jesus  and  of  the  bearing  of  his 
teachings  and  example  on  all  our  modern 
problems.  Science  and  invention  register 
great  advances  from  year  to  year,  but  Jesus 
retains  his  mastership  of  the  race. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  ideas  that  cling  to 
countless  human  minds  the  world  over. 
Why  not  fix  them  firmly  in  our  own  thinking 
and  act  upon  them.^ 


6i] 


"AFTER  YOU,   PLEASE" 

IT  sometimes  requires  the  services  of  an 
expert  to  determine  whether  a  piece 
of  furniture  is  genuine  mahogany  or  ordi- 
nary wood  overlaid  with  a  handsome  veneer. 
Neither  is  it  always  easy,  from  casual  ac- 
quaintance, to  decide  whether  politeness  in 
a  certain  individual  is  real  or  superficial. 
But  time  will  tell.  I  knew  two  men  in  col- 
lege, one  of  whom  was  the  most  popular 
fellow  in  his  class,  and  the  other  one  of  the 
most  unpopular,  but  both  were  exceedingly 
deferential  and  considerate  in  the  presence 
of  others.  In  the  one  case,  however,  the 
politeness  was  the  natural  outflowing  of  a 
refined  and  unselfish  character  as  spon- 
taneous and  beautiful  as  the  blush  upon  the 
peach,  while  in  the  other  case  the  politeness 
appeared  to  be  simply  a  means  toward  the 
accomplishment  of  a  selfish  end,  a  species 
of  toadyism  by  virtue  of  which  he  hoped  to 
get  the  entree  into  certain  circles.  But  in 
the  long  run  he  lost  the  favor  which  he 
courted,  as  a  man  always  does  who  tries  to 
ride  into  popularity  on  his  gentlemanly 
manners  alone. 

[62] 


"AFTER    YOU,    PLEASE" 

We  on  this  side  the  water,  with  our  demo- 
cratic traditions,  are  inclined  to  look  upon 
customs  in  other  countries  as  mere  empty 
formalism.  Passing  out  of  a  Paris  restaurant 
one  day  I  noticed  how  my  companion,  a 
Parisian,  lifted  his  hat  to  the  lady  cashier. 
"I  do  it,"  he  explained,  "not  because  she 
is  a  lady,  but  because  I  am  a  gentleman." 
I  couldn't  help  wondering  whether  it  would 
not  be  better  to  be  a  trifle  less  polite  and 
a  little  more  truly  regardful  of  the  feminine 
sex.  And  as  between  the  suave  manner 
with  a  flinty  heart  and  the  brusque  manner 
with  the  kind  heart,  give  me  every  time  the 
latter. 

But  need  a  man  be  brusque  in  order  to 
be  genuine?  By  no  means.  Let  us  get 
back  to  the  tap-root  of  politeness,  which 
is  a  good  heart.  Starting  with  that,  let  a 
man  cultivate  the  amenities  and  civilities. 
Few  of  us  are  as  considerate  as  we  ought 
to  be  of  the  rights  and  claims  of  others. 
In  how  many  homes  is  politeness  at  a  mini- 
mum! When  company  comes  you  brush 
up  your  manners  for  a  day  or  two,  but 
when  the  company  departs  you  forget  all 
about  "Thank  you"  and  "If  you  please." 
You  keep  the  easy  chair  in  the  parlor  when 

[63] 


REAL    RELIGION 


your  mother  or  sister  comes  in.  You  dare 
not  be  anything  else  but  civil  to  a  compara- 
tive stranger,  but  you  are  hardly  decent 
to  your  dearest  ones.  So,  too,  in  business 
circles.  Some  proprietors  enter  their  stores 
or  their  offices  without  so  much  as  a  pleas- 
ant "good  morning"  to  office  boy  or  sten- 
ographer. 

"After  you,  please"  —  what  a  world  of 
hidden  meaning  there  is  in  this  little  phrase 
which  we  take  so  lightly  upon  our  lips. 
It  means,  when  we  think  it  through,  that 
we  have  made  the  great  renunciation,  that 
we  have  really  chosen  to  give  others  prece- 
dence, that  we  are  willing  to  follow  and 
not  to  set  the  pace,  that  we  are  content  to 
be  second  or  third  or  even  fourth.  Are  we 
ready  to  undergo  such  a  personal  shrinkage.^ 
Of  one  who  came  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago,  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister, 
it  was  said  in  later  time,  "Jesus  Christ  was 
the  only  perfect  gentleman  that  ever  lived." 


[64] 


*^SHE  COULD,  SHE  WOULD,  SHE 
DID" 

1  NEVER  happened  to  meet  the  woman  on 
whose  tombstone  was  carved  this  epi- 
taph, but  I  have  met  her  counterpart  many 
times.  And  it  may  profit  us  all  to  pause  a 
moment  and  reflect  upon  the  meaning  of 
such  a  summing  up  of  a  life  career.  How 
simple  such  a  characterization  is,  how  un- 
conventional, how  different  from  the  ones 
which  appear  with  almost  wearisome  mo- 
notony in  every  churchyard.  And  yet  how 
adequate  it  is,  too,  how  inclusive  and  beau- 
tiful. To  be  able  to  utter  these  six  words 
about  any  man  or  woman  whose  life  race 
is  run  is  as  much  of  a  compliment  as  a 
large  volume  of  glowing  praise.  Capacity, 
willingness,  action;  when  those  three  traits 
are  properly  blended  you  cannot  fail  to  get 
a  strong,  fruitful  character.  And  almost  all 
the  tragedies  in  human  life,  almost  all  the 
mistakes  and  blunders  are  due  to  the  ab- 
sence of  one  or  more  of  these  qualities  or  to 
their  being  faultily  related  to  one  another. 
"  She  could."    There  was  capacity,  to  begin 

[6s] 


REAL    RELIGION 


with.  It  may  be  that  she  possessed  wealth 
or  uncommon  mental  gifts.  More  likely  she 
had  a  fund  of  hope  and  faith  and  love.  At 
any  rate  she  had  innate  ability;  but  was 
she  any  exception  to  the  rest  of  us?  Every 
mother's  son  of  us  possesses  some  ability, 
and  if  we  are  going  to  do  anything  with 
our  lives  we  must  discern  what  it  is,  take 
its  dimensions,  realize  its  value.  Self-dis- 
trust is  as  much  of  an  impediment  to  prog- 
ress as  self-conceit.  "Oh,  I  can't."  How 
often  that  depressing  phrase  is  on  the  lips 
of  people  who  really  know  better.  Every- 
body can  do  something  and  be  something. 
There  is  a  vast  deal  of  unused  good  material 
buried  in  many  a  man's  nature  simply  be- 
cause he  has  not  courage  to  mine  for  it  and 
bring  it  out  into  the  open.  Hundreds  of 
persons  may  be  able  to  do  any  number  of 
things  better  than  you  can,  but  there  is  at 
least  one  thing  and  perhaps  more  that  you 
can  do  as  well  as  any  one  else  and  probably 
better  than  a  good  many  others. 

"She  would."  Capacity  was  yoked  with 
willingness  in  this  woman's  case.  "I  will 
try"  represented  her  attitude  through  life. 
When  people  came  to  her  to  gain  her  help 
in  some  worthy  undertaking,  they  did  not 
[661 


"SHE  COULD,  WOULD,  DID" 

have  to  break  down  a  great  wall  of  reluc- 
tance. She  was  ready  to  take  the  responsible 
post  assigned  her,  to  give  of  her  substance,  her 
time,  her  ingenuity,  for  the  welfare  of  others. 
How  many  desirable  reforms  would  be 
accomplished,  how  much  faster  the  chariot 
of  progress  would  advance,  how  many 
struggling  little  enterprises  would  gain  a 
solid  underpinning,  if  the  people  who  could 
help  them  were  only  willing  to  do  their  part. 
Oh,  cultivate  the  willing,  compliant,  and  not 
the  demurring,  objecting  disposition. 

"She  did."  Ah,  there  is  the  fruitage  of  it 
all.  The  world  wants  people  who  do  things. 
Many  capable  and  willing  individuals  stop  just 
short  of  performance.  They  possess  ability, 
they  are  full  of  kindly  intentions,  but  some- 
how the  letter  of  sympathy  never  gets 
written,  the  call  upon  some  forlorn  person 
never  gets  made,  the  means  of  personal 
culture  close  at  hand  is  never  actually  laid 
hold  of.  So  golden  days  pass  away  with 
nothing  tangible  accomplished.  So  long  ago 
as  the  first  century  there  lived  a  woman  by 
the  name  of  Dorcas,  who  we  have  reason 
to  believe  was  not  brilliant  intellectually 
or  conspicuous  socially,  but  her  fame  has 
lived    through    the    centuries,    because,    as 

[67] 


REAL    RELIGION 


the  account  of  her  Hfe  says,  she  was  "full 
of  good  works  and  almsdeeds  which  she 
did."  She  was  handy  with  her  needle 
and  her  friends  and  neighbors  profited  con- 
stantly by  the  garments  which  she  made 
and  distributed  generously  to  those  who  had 
need  of  them.  Many  of  us  are  full  of  good 
works  which  we  never  do,  which  we  intend 
to  do  tomorrow  or  next  week,  but  this 
Dorcas  of  the  first  century  clung  to  her 
intentions  till  they  became  realized  facts, 
and  therefore  she  is  fitly  characterized  as 
"full  of  good  works  which  she  did."  There 
is  a  little  touch  of  irony  in  those  last  three 
words  which  ought  to  make  us  twinge, 
when  our  actual  performance  comes  far 
short  of  what  we  have  purposed. 

A  good  ideal  for  a  man's  life  Is  this: 
To  measure  your  capacity  for  efficient  work, 
to  cultivate  a  willing  spirit,  and  then  to  go 
ahead  and  do  something.  Is  not  that  the 
secret  of  a  happy,  earnest  life,  not  overbusy, 
but  serene,  steady,  and  fruitful? 


[68 


"BE   SOMEBODY" 

THIS  laconic  injunction  caught  my  eye 
the  other  day.  It  was  the  first  head- 
line of  a  bold-faced  advertisement  proclaim- 
ing the  advantages  of  a  certain  school  of 
correspondence.  It  offered  attractive  courses 
in  engineering,  architecture,  electricity,  and 
a  number  of  other  branches  of  learning,  and 
the  inducement  held  forth  was  that  it  does 
not  pay  to  settle  down  lazily  in  a  niinor 
position  when  by  gaining  more  information 
one's  services  would  command  a  higher 
salary.  I  can  imagine  that  such  an  adver- 
tisement would  appeal  powerfully  to  many 
young  men.  It  suggests  a  differentiation  of 
oneself  from  the  common  herd,  a  striking 
out  boldly  with  the  hope  and  expectation  of 
amounting  to  something.  The  nobodies  are 
all  about  us.  Some  of  them  are  amiable, 
well-meaning  persons.  But  they  lack  ginger 
and  go.  Negative,  colorless  they  are  when 
the  world  wants  men  of  conviction,  men  of 
action. 

Not   so   were   the   men   who   have    really 
contributed   something   to   humanity.     "Be 

[69] 


REAL    RELIGION 


somebody"  whispered  a  voice  in  the  ears 
of  Tyndale  early  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  he  set  his  teeth  and  said,  "If  God  spares 
my  life  I  will  make  it  possible  for  any  plow- 
boy  in  England  to  read  the  Bible  in  his 
own  tongue."  "Be  somebody"  was  the 
bugle-call  a  century  ago  to  Samuel  J.  Mills, 
the  American  pioneer  of  the  modern  mission- 
ary movement,  and  he  wrote  in  his  diary, 
"No  young  man  ought  to  think  of  living 
without  trying  to  make  his  influence  felt 
around  the  globe."  "Be  somebody"  said 
the  inward  monitor  to  Frances  Willard,  and 
out  of  her  brain  and  heart  came  the  splen- 
did development  of  the  Women's  Christian 
Temperance  Union.  "Be  somebody"  was 
the  terse  command  that  spurred  William 
Booth  on  to  organize  the  Salvation  Army. 

And  thus,  time  after  time,  to  the  country 
lad  hoeing  his  father's  corn,  to  the  city 
clerk  not  content  with  being  a  mere  drudge, 
to  the  society  maiden  weary  of  her  gayeties, 
to  the  middle-aged  man  conscious  that 
there  is  yet  another  chance  before  the  night 
closes  in  upon  him,  has  come  this  incisive 
voice  bidding  the  one  addressed  cease  being 
"anybody"  or  "nobody"  and  rise  to  the 
dignity  of  "somebody." 

[70] 


"BE     SOMEBODY" 


It  is  a  noble  command.  We  are  meant 
to  be  somebodies,  to  count  for  all  we  are 
worth,  to  play  the  game  through  fairly 
and  vigorously  and  never  be  quitters  or 
shirks.  The  manager  of  a  great  corporation 
said  recently  that  he  sought  for  men  to 
become  agents  of  his  company  who  could 
impress  their  individuality  upon  those  with 
whom  the  concern  did  business  so  that  they 
would  not  think  of  it  as  an  abstract  entity, 
but  would  personify  it  in  the  faces  and  figures 
of  its  cheery,  whole-souled  drummers.  To- 
day, as  of  yore  when  conditions  were  far 
simpler,  people  like  to  do  business,  not  with 
a  tremendous  affair  known  as  the  Amalga- 
mated Hair  Pin  Company  Limited,  but  with 
Jones  and  Smith  and  Brown. 

If  we  cannot  be  somebody  in  the  eyes 
of  the  big  world  we  can  be  within  a  limited 
area.  We  can  be  somebody  to  our  children, 
our  friends,  our  neighbors,  our  church  asso- 
ciates. The  secret  is  first  to  build  ourselves 
up  in  the  finest  graces  and  virtues  and  then 
to  expend  them  lavishly  on  others. 


[71] 


"HOW   IS    BUSINESS?'' 

HOW  is  business?  This  is  the  great 
.  American  question.  Watch  two  men 
accost  each  other.  "How  are  you?''  "How 
is  your  family?"  "Do  you  think  it  is 
going  to  rain?"  These  are  likely  to  be 
the  first  questions,  but  usually  they  are  in 
the  nature  of  a  polite  introduction  to  the 
one  theme  in  which  both  are  most  interested. 
All  over  the  land  this  question  is  being  asked 
all  day  long.  No  solicitude  for  any  states- 
man or  celebrated  author  who  may  be  ill 
is  quite  so  keen  as  the  popular  desire  that 
this  great  intangible,  semi-personal  con- 
cern of  mankind  known  as  business  shall 
suffer  no  fluctuations  of  health.  Wars  are 
looked  upon  as  a  menace  to  commerce, 
and  therefore  organizations  of  business  men 
express  themselves  in  favor  of  universal 
peace.  Political  campaigns  are  dreaded  lest 
they  should  lower  the  barometer  of  trade. 
Prolonged  and  bitter  strikes  are  disap- 
proved of,  not,  perhaps,  primarily  because 
of  the  sufferings  they  entail  upon  those 
most  concerned,  but  because  sooner  or  later 
they  may  affect  general  business. 

[72] 


"HOW    IS    BUSINESS?" 

It  is  no  sign  that  a  man  is  entirely  com- 
mercialized because  he  asks  this  question 
instinctively.  The  Book  of  books  has 
many  good  words  for  the  man  who  is 
not  slothful,  but  diligent  in  his  business. 
It  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  such  a  man 
shall  stand  before  kings.  An  age  character- 
ized by  business  activity  is  far  in  advance 
of  one  marked  by  the  barbaric  occupations 
of  hunting,  fishing,  and  fighting.  The  world 
gets  on  largely  because  of  the  volume  of 
business  done  in  it  day  by  day.  That 
sooner  or  later  gives  rise  to  the  refinements 
and  adornments  of  civilization.  Stagnation 
in  business  would  mean  a  lessening  of 
libraries  and  museums,  colleges  and  churches. 
Business  fs,  indeed,  a  divinely  ordained 
function  for  the  great  majority  of  mankind, 
and  millions  of  men  are  to  work  out  their 
salvation  and  wield  their  influence  in  the 
world  as  they  stand  faithful  to  their  duties 
in  offices,  shops,  banking  institutions,  and 
manufacturing  concerns. 

But  when  this  question  circumscribes 
the  whole  horizon  of  a  man's  life,  it  means 
that  he  is  daily  becoming  narrow  and  sordid. 
He  may  be  adding  to  his  invested  funds, 
but  he  is  growing  insensitive  to  all  the  higher 

[73] 


REAL    RELIGION 


concerns  of  human  life,  to  music,  to  art,  to 
literature,  to  friendship,  and  to  the  public 
service.  That  was  the  kind  of  business  man 
Phillips  Brooks  had  in  mind  once  when,  in 
a  little  fit  of  impatience,  he  said,  "I  declare, 
I  have  never  met  a  business  man  whom  I 
thoroughly  liked." 

Certainly,  the  business  man  who  is  nothing 
but  a  business  man,  who,  from  the  time  he 
rises  to  the  time  he  retires,  thinks  of  nothing 
but  business,  is  to  be  pitied.  When  he 
has  made  his  pile  and  is  ready  to  retire, 
he  will  find  that  certain  sides  of  his  nature 
have  become  atrophied.  He  may  go  to 
Europe  on  his  own  private  yacht,  but  all 
the  picture  galleries  and  beautiful  churches 
and  natural  glories  of  the  Old  World  will 
fail  to  move  him  as  they  would  have  done 
if  he  had  not  so  entirely  concentrated  all 
his  energies  upon  the  making  of  money. 

Fortunate  is  the  man  who,  while  ambitious 
and  diligent  along  business  lines,  does  not 
close  all  the  chambers  of  his  soul  to  other 
interests,  to  the  prattle  of  little  children 
at  play,  to  the  movement  of  the  stars  in 
the  heavens,  to  the  nourishing  words  of 
preacher  and  poet,  to  those  institutions 
which  represent  altruism  and  make  for  the 

[74] 


"HOW    IS    BUSINESS?" 

public  weal.  Perhaps  he  will  not  amass 
quite  as  great  wealth,  but  he  will  be  ten- 
fold larger  and  nobler  when  he  is  seventy 
years  old.  Wordsworth  is  right  when  he 
sings : 

*'  The  world  is  too  much  with  us;  late  and  soon, 

Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers: 
Little  we  see  in  Nature  that  is  ours; 
We  have  given  our  hearts  away,  a  sordid  boon!  " 

And  Charles  Dickens,  in  his  immortal 
Christmas  Carol,  represents  the  stingy 
Scrooge  brought  to  a  knowledge  of  his  mean- 
ness by  the  ghost  of  his  former  partner, 
Marley.  To  justify  himself  Scrooge  says 
in  faltering  tones,  "But  you  were  always 
such  a  good  man  of  business,  Jacob."  To 
which  the  ghost  replies  in  words  that  ought 
to  sink  into  all  our  minds,  "Business! 
Mankind  was  my  business.  The  common 
welfare  was  my  business;  charity,  mercy, 
forbearance,  and  benevolence  were  all  my 
business.  The  dealings  of  my  trade  were 
but  a  drop  of  water  in  the  comprehensive 
ocean  of  my  business!" 


75 


OFF  DAYS 

"  T  T  E  is  a  pretty  good  fellow,  but  he 
A  X  has  his  off  days"  was  the  comment 
of  one  of  his  friends  regarding  a  railroad 
man  well  known  in  his  community.  We  all 
know  him,  or  at  least  men  like  him.  To- 
day they  are  agreeable,  obliging,  approach- 
able, altogether  delightful.  Tomorrow  they 
are  as  acid  as  vinegar,  and  as  sullen  as  an 
ill-tempered  dog.  Just  what  has  happened 
to  justify  or  explain  the  transformation, 
no  observer  possesses  discernment  enough 
to  tell,  and,  in  fact,  nothing,  in  the  way  of 
ill  tidings  or  unpleasant  experiences  has  be- 
fallen them.  Through  some  unaccountable 
reason  they  are  simply  passing  through  an 
off  day.  And  it  is  not  grown  people  alone 
who  are  victims  of  the  malady.  Have  we 
not  known  the  dearest  children  in  the  world 
to  be  one  day  perfectly  angelic  and  twenty- 
four  hours  thereafter  perfectly  anarchistic  in 
temper  and  behavior.^  They,  too,  by  some 
subtle  process,  which  orthodox  people  would 
ascribe  to  the  workings  of  an  evil  spirit, 
have  undergone  a  transformation  similar  to 

[76] 


OFF    DAYS 


that     which    made     Dr.    Jekyll    into    Mr. 
Hyde. 

Now  the  victims  of  off  days  are  not  to  be 
harshly  judged,  and  those  of  us  who  are  more 
staid  of  temperament,  who  do  not  know  what 
it  is  to  jump  in  an  instant  from  a  mood  of 
exultation  to  one  of  depression,  who  get  up 
in  the  morning  and  go  through  our  routine 
duties  without  feeling  any  special  uplift  or 
any  special  sag,  should  be  patient  with  our 
differently  constituted  brethren  and  sisters. 
They  really  suffer  from  their  occasional  off 
days  more  than  anybody  who  associates  with 
them  suffers.  If,  sometimes,  they  seem  to 
rise  higher  than  the  rest  of  us  in  point  of 
enthusiasm  and  joy,  they  sink  lower  and 
suffer  more. 

And  yet  the  victims  of  this  malady  have 
no  right  to  succumb  tamely  to  it  and  to 
impose  their  own  depressed  moods  and  atti- 
tudes upon  their  fellow  men.  They  ought 
rather  to  accept  the  off  days  as  a  part  of 
the  assigned  program  of  their  lives  and  so 
not  be  surprised  when  they  come,  or  to 
measure  all  the  hope  and  joy  of  life  by  the 
next  twenty-four  hours  which  they  are  some- 
how to  live  through. 

The  best  cure  for  off  days  is  to  go  right 

[77\ 


REAL    RELIGION 


along  with  prescribed  duties.  This  rail- 
road man  to  whom  I  have  referred  is  fortu- 
nate in  being  obHged  to  open  the  window 
of  his  ticket  office  at  just  such  a  time  in 
the  morning,  to  note  the  coming  and  going 
of  trains,  to  attend  to  the  numerous  requests 
of  the  patrons  of  the  road.  His  treadmill 
of  duty  is  really  his  salvation,  and  any  one 
who  suffers  from  the  same  disease  may  well 
force  himself  whenever  the  off  day  comes  to 
be  even  more  scrupulous  in  the  performance 
of  his  duty  and  more  faithful  in  every  detail. 
Then,  too,  in  our  off  days  we  should  draw 
upon  our  reserves,  should  call  to  mind  the 
bright,  radiant  days  that  constitute  the 
real  assets  of  a  man's  life.  Matthew  Arnold 
in  one  of  his  noblest  poems  says: 

"Tasks  in  hours  of  insight  willed 
Can  be  in  hours  of  gloom  fulfilled." 

That  is  the  reason  why  exuberant  people 
sometimes  seem  to  get  more  out  of  a  given 
day  or  a  given  experience  than  people  of 
more  phlegmatic  temperament  get;  namely, 
that  the  larger  satisfactions  may  serve  as  a 
kind  of  reserve  fund  on  which  heavy  drafts 
may  be  made  when  the  clouds  gather  and 
the  north  wind  blows. 

[78] 


OFF    DAYS 


And  maybe  a  person  who  suffers  from  the 
off  days'  disease  should  consider  whether  or 
not  he  may  get  rid  altogether  of  the  trouble. 
It  may  take  a  number  of  years  of  hard,  per- 
sistent effort,  but  many  a  man  has  overcome 
the  disposition  to  be  depressed  and  ugly. 
Various  weapons  can  be  used.  Health  and 
exercise  are  important;  contact  with  cheery 
people  helps;  the  broadening  of  the  mental 
horizon  and  the  enriching  of  the  artistic  and 
musical  sensibilities  all  fortify  a  man  against 
the  recurrence  of  his  off  days,  and  there  is  no 
better  weapon  than  pure  and  vital  religion. 


79 


''SAME  OLD  JOB" 

OVER  the  telephone  the  other  day  I 
asked  a  man  whom  I  had  not  seen 
for  months  what  he  was  doing.  "Same  old 
job"  was  the  reply,  and  the  tone  as  well 
as  the  language  indicated  what  he  thought 
of  it.  It  was  not  the  note  of  disgust  and 
open  revolt,  but  rather  that  of  "grin  and 
bear  it,"  of  patient  acquiescence  in  the 
inevitable,  together  with  the  abandonment 
of  hope  that  things  would  ever  be  better. 

It  seemed  as  if  the  voices  of  multitudes 
were  speaking  over  the  wire.  I  could  hear 
the  unvoiced  complaint  of  the  man  who 
opens  and  shuts  a  gate  all  day  long,  the 
man  who  hands  out  tickets  through  a  window, 
the  man  who  delivers  milk  at  the  back  door 
in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  the  woman  who 
stitches  away  on  a  garment,  the  woman 
who  washes  dishes,  who  mends  the  children's 
garments,  the  woman  who  attends  to  the 
fretful  and  demanding  babies.  In  fact,  the 
whole  multitude  of  persons  condemned  to 
a  single  kind  of  task,  and  that  in  itself 
terribly    monotonous,    spoke    in    that     one 

[80] 


"SAME    OLD    JOB" 


man's  response  over  the  wire,  "Same  old 
job." 

Modern  life  presents  no  greater  single 
personal  problem  than  that  of  securing  an 
honest  and  cheerful  measure  of  service  on 
the  part  of  the  multitudes  to  whom  the 
progress  and  differentiation  of  industry  has 
assigned  relatively  small  and  menial  tasks 
of  a  treadmill  character.  The  same  personal 
problem  confronts  even  those  who  have 
higher  tasks,  who  do  not  have  to  delve  and 
grind  in  the  midst  of  material  things,  but 
who,  nevertheless,  do  not  escape  that  sense 
of  weariness  because  of  unyielding  obstacles, 
cramping  limitations,  and  only  a  moderate 
degree  of  success  when  their  ambition  is 
spurring  them  to  larger  achievements.  And 
so  it  becomes  a  very  vital  question  to  all  of 
us,  how  can  we  face  the  "same  old  job" 
morning  by  morning  with  new  courage, 
initiative,  and  hope.^ 

First,  by  looking  at  it  as  a  new  task. 
That  may  seem  altogether  impossible,  if 
we  have  sat  in  the  same  chair  or  stood 
behind  the  same  counter  for  ten,  fifteen,  or 
twenty  years;  but  it  is  within  the  field  of 
the  possible,  provided  one  has  determination 
enough.  Try  it  some  day  and  approach 
[8i] 


REAL    RELIGION 


the  old  duty  as  though  you  had  never  seen 
it  before,  and  see  if  it  does  not  present  to 
you  some  new  and  inspiring  aspects. 

Or  we  might  think  of  the  next  day's 
service  as  the  last  one  we  should  ever  render. 
That  might  make  things  seem  a  little  solemn, 
to  be  sure,  but  it  would  prevent  us,  perhaps, 
from  careless  and  slipshod  work,  from  leav- 
ing any  raw  edges  for  our  successor  to 
deal  with.  The  wonderful  thing  about  the 
work  of  Jesus  Christ  was  that  he  finished 
it,  left  it  in  precisely  the  right  shape  for 
his  followers  to  take  it  up  and  carry  on. 

There  is  incentive,  too,  in  trying  to  imagine 
how  some  other  man  would  do  the  same 
thing.  Suppose  the  President  could  spare 
a  day  from  the  White  House  and  the  over- 
sight of  this  nation  to  do  your  job,  how  would 
he  approach  it.^  What  new  ways  and  im- 
proved methods  would  he  employ.^  What 
kind  of  a  spirit  would  he  show.'*  What 
would  be  his  attitude  to  his  employers  and 
the  concern  as  a  whole?  How  would  he 
deal  with  the  problem.^  This  "other  man" 
is  not  an  impossibility  or  a  myth.  He  may 
turn  up  any  day,  and  you  would  better 
anticipate  his  coming  by  trying  to  do  as 
well  as  he  would  do  in  your  place. 

[82] 


"SAME    OLD    JOB" 


And  the  last  and  chief  source  of  fresh 
courage  for  the  "same  old  job"  is  the  con- 
solation of  being  a  soldier  on  duty.  Unless 
we  get  some  sense  of  the  control  and  guid- 
ance of  our  life  by  a  higher  power  we  shall 
be  apt  once  and  again  to  recoil  from  the 
monotony  and  strain  and  irksomeness.  But 
suppose  you  can  say,  "God  wants  me  here. 
He  put  me  here;  from  all  I  can  see  he 
wants  me  and  no  one  else  here.  When  he 
wants  me  elsewhere,  he  will  give  me  release. 
I  don't  deserve  promotion,  unless  I  have 
done  my  level  best  just  here  and  now"  — 
what  a  new  phase  that  puts  on  the  old 
task!  The  great  theologian,  Horace  Bushnell, 
once  preached  a  sermon  entitled,  "Every 
man's  life  a  plan  of  God."  To  fulfil  that 
plan  is  better  than  to  get  riches  or  fame, 
and  in  the  long  run,  in  proportion  as  we 
do  our  part  toward  its  fulfilment,  we  obtain 
our  greatest  happiness. 


[83] 


THE    COURAGE    TO    PART    WITH 
THINGS 

WE  are  frequently  admonished  to  hold 
on  to  what  we  have.  "Do  not 
leave  any  articles  in  the  car"  is  the  injunc- 
tion of  some  brakemen  at  the  end  of  the 
journey.  Some  of  us  acquire  a  passion  for 
hoarding,  and  if  we  live  long  in  one  place 
accumulate  a  lot  of  things  which  may  be 
of  no  earthly  good  to  us,  but  which  we 
are  not  courageous  enough  to  throw  away. 
Some  rooms  impress  you,  on  entering  them, 
with  being  cluttered;  too  many  knicknacks 
and  gewgaws.  It  might  be  a  blessing  to 
that  family  to  have  to  move;  then  perhaps 
they  would  discriminate  between  the  real 
and  the  spurious  artistic  adornments. 

If  we  all  went  through  our  personal 
belongings  we  should  probably  find  a  good 
many  things  that  were  better  off  in  the  waste- 
basket  than  in  drawers  and  on  shelves. 
Take  the  problem  of  old  letters;  what's 
the  use  of  saving  so  many.^  Some  people 
even  go  so  far  as  to  preserve  every  scrap 
of  a  note  that  comes   into  their  possession. 

[84] 


TO    PART    WITH    THINGS 

They  could  produce  the  letter  that  John 
Jones  wrote  them  in  1878  with  regard  to 
the  state  of  the  weather  in  West  Podunk. 
Certain  letters  that  have  to  do  with  great 
events  and  crises  it  is  desirable  to  keep, 
and  a  ma.n  will  think  long  before  he  throws 
away  the  tender  missives  he  received  in 
college  or  boarding-school  from  his  father 
and  mother.  Into  them  went  the  very 
life-blood  of  the  ones  who  gave  him  his 
being,  and  the  counsel  and  love  crystallized 
into  written  language  are  worth  more  to 
him  than  an  inheritance  of  riches. 

One  or  two  guiding  principles  may  help 
us  to  discriminate  concerning  what  we 
would  better  keep  and  what  we  would 
better  destroy  or  pass  on  to  some  one  else. 
In  the  first  place,  it  does  not  pay  to  hold 
on  to  the  things  that  hinder  us  from  grow- 
ing. That  to  which  we  cling  may  have 
served  good  uses  in  its  time,  but  it  no  longer 
helps  us  to  be  better  or  happier.  Even 
sacred  mementos  may  sometimes  be  so 
violently  cherished  by  us  that  they  act 
as  a  drain  upon  our  nervous  energies  and 
our  moral  force.  I  have  heard  recently  of 
a  grieving  mother,  who  every  day  takes  out 
a   little   shoe   worn   once   by   a   fair   laddie, 

[85] 


REAL    RELIGION 


who  no  longer  makes  music  in  that  home,  but 
who  has  gone  to  the  fairer  life,  where  "their 
angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven." 

This  mother  sheds  copious  tears  each  day, 
as  she  looks  at  this  little  memento  of  the 
one  who  was  her  pride  and  joy;  but  mean- 
time she  is  nervous,  listless,  out  of  touch 
with  life,  living  with  her  memories  and  not 
with  her  hopes.  So  the  little  shoe,  dear 
as  it  is,  becomes  a  drag  on  her,  even  a 
chain,  to  keep  her  back  from  the  real  con- 
solation that  comes  to  us  in  the  presence 
of  death;  namely,  the  effort  to  take  our 
place  once  again  and  do  our  work  in  a  world 
which  still  holds  for  us  joy,  if  we  will  only 
shake  ourselves  free  of  the  fetters  that  would 
bind  us  to  the  past. 

Another  guiding  principle  is  consideration 
as  to  whether  in  the  place  of  the  things  we 
are  loath  to  part  with  we  can  substitute 
something  better.  You  do  not  want,  for 
example,  a  creed,  out  of  which  the  real  life 
has  gone,  which  the  discoveries  of  scholar- 
ship have  rendered  obsolete,  which  your 
own  religious  experience  has  already  outrun. 
You  do  not  want  any  text-book,  or  even 
story-book,  the  reading  of  which  will  prevent 
[86] 


TO    PART    WITH    THINGS 

you  from  reading  a  better  one.  You  do  not 
want,  my  wealthy  but  parsimonious  friend, 
the  hundred  dollars  which  some  Armenian 
orphan,  just  bereft  of  his  parents  and  hungry 
and  naked,  needs  more  than  you  do  at  this 
moment. 

Our  business  is  with  the  present.  Let  us 
always  remember  that.  We  would  better 
throw  away  a  good  many  things  when  we 
are  through  with  them,  lest  they  litter  up 
the  place  where  we  live,  and  even  worse 
than  that,  lest  they  fetter  our  lives  in  the 
pursuit  of  the  things  that  are  most  worth 
while.  The  really  brave  man  is  he  who  can 
let  some  things  go  when  they  have  served 
their  uses  and  have  ceased  to  yield  anything 
to  the  development  of  character. 


87] 


LIFE    ON    EASY    STREET 

I  HAVE  never  been  able  to  acquire  any 
property  on  Easy  Street,  but  since  a 
few  friends  and  acquaintances  are  just  now 
residing  there  I  am  somewhat  familiar  with 
its  life.  It  is  an  interesting  and  charming 
little  community.  I  like  to  study  it  as  I  pay 
an  occasional  call  or  visit  to  the  street. 

There  are  my  friends  the  Welloffs,  for  ex- 
ample. They  never  had  any  children  and 
WellofF  once  confided  to  me  that  neither  of 
them  very  much  cared.  And  when  I  ven- 
tured to  suggest  that  they  adopt  one  he 
rejoined,  "What  do  you  take  us  for  any- 
way!" Relieved  of  all  parental  responsi- 
bilities, they  come  and  go  as  they  please. 
Almost  every  winter  they  spend  at  least  a 
few  weeks  in  Florida  or  Egypt  or  some  other 
balmy  region.  They  are  very  hospitable 
when  at  home  and  I  have  met  in  their 
drawing-room  some  of  the  leading  artists 
and  musicians  of  the  city.  Once  in  a  while 
they  develop  a  rather  ephemeral  interest  in 
some  popular  charity,  and  Mrs.  Welloff  was 
for  one  season  the  president  of  the  Anti- 
[88] 


LIFE    ON    EASY    STREET 

Public  Expectoration  League.  I  like  to  dine 
at  the  Welloffs.  The  eight  courses  are  al- 
ways delicious  and  faultlessly  served  as  well. 
Their  house  is  full  of  fascinating  antiques  and 
curios  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  Somehow, 
I  miss,  however,  the  little  shoes  and  dollies 
that  might  be  here  or  there.  But  Mrs.  Well- 
off  is  very  fond  of  her  canary  and  once  sat  up 
nearly  all  night  to  tend  it  when  it  was  sick. 
Just  opposite  the  Welloffs  is  the  fine  stone 
mansion  which  belongs  to  my  college  class- 
mate, Jack  Chameleon,  or  to  speak  more 
exactly,  to  his  wife,  for  after  Jack  had 
struggled  along  two  or  three  years  in  his 
profession,  a  rich  and  estimable  young  lady 
captured  his  fancies  and  responded  to  his 
advances.  They  are  now  enrolled  among 
the  substantial  people  of  the  town.  They 
have  a  number  of  children  and  plenty  of 
servants  to  look  after  them,  though  they 
themselves  never  scant  their  parental  duties. 
Perhaps  it  is  my  imagination,  but  it  has 
seemed  to  me  as  if  Chameleon  ceased  to 
feel  the  pressure  upon  him  of  the  fight  for 
daily  bread,  for  he  was  poorer  than  most 
of  us  in  college.  Chameleon  has  undergone 
quite  a  cooling  of  professional  ambitions. 
Though  he  maintains  nominally  office  hours 


REAL    RELIGION 


they  are  well  inside  the  limit  of  even  a 
seven-hour  working  day.  Not  that  he  has 
altogether  degenerated  intellectually,  but 
when  I  asked  him  the  other  day  about 
that  book  which  used  to  glow  in  his  imagi- 
nation as  a  possibility  of  the  future  before 
he  met  Mrs.  C,  he  jokingly  replied,  "Oh, 
well,  there  are  a  lot  of  books  of  that  type 
afloat  now  and  if  I  should  ever  get  mine  out  I 
doubt  if  it  would  find  the  public.  Come  over 
and  play  golf,  won't  you,  some  afternoon.^" 
There  is  another  house  on  Easy  Street 
where  I  call  occasionally,  but  not  so  fre- 
quently as  when  little  Elsie  Sweetface  was 
just  beginning  to  toddle.  What  a  fascina- 
ting little  creature  she  was  then!  She  is 
very  pretty  now  at  nine,  but  somehow 
her  face  often  takes  on  a  discontented 
and  petulant  expression.  Things  have  been 
made  very  easy  for  Elsie  all  these  nine 
years.  The  understanding  was  that  if  she 
cried  for  a  thing  she  had  better  have  it. 
"Get  along  with  her  as  easily  as  you  can," 
I  once  heard  her  mother  remark  to  the  nurse. 
She  was  bathed  and  clothed  and  fed  long 
after  the  time  when  she  ought  to  have  begun 
to  attend  to  these  daily  processes  herself. 
When  the  public  school  proved  a  little  hard 

[90]     ■ 


LIFE    ON    EASY    STREET 

she  was  sent  to  a  private  school.  Indeed, 
her  entire  life  has  been  ordered  from  the 
point  of  view  of  what  would  be  most  easy 
and  agreeable  for  Elsie.  I  wonder  if  at 
thirty  or  even  at  eighteen  she  will  thank 
her  parents  for  their  over-indulgence  of  her. 
As  you  drive  through  Easy  Street  and 
view  the  well-kept  lawns  and  comfortable 
dwellings  the  tone  of  things  gratifies  all  your 
esthetic  susceptibilities.  And  I  know  some 
people  on  the  street  who  are  living  just  as 
earnest  and  self-sacrificing  lives  as  are  being 
lived  anywhere  in  the  world  today.  Indeed 
I  sometimes  have  a  drawing  toward  Easy 
Street  myself.  And  yet  if  these  are  the 
alternatives  ^  I  know  which  I  would  choose 
for  myself  and  children.  As  between  Easy 
Street  and  a  flabby  intellect  and  Hardship 
Lane  with  an  alert  and  acquisitive  mind, 
as  between  Easy  Street  with  a  dull  con- 
science and  Hardship  Lane  with  an  active 
one,  as  between  Easy  Street  with  a  patroniz- 
ing, condescending  spirit  and  Hardship  Lane 
with  a  truly  democratic  one,  as  between  Easy 
Street  with  an  ossifying  heart  and  Hardship 
Lane  with  sympathies  as  wide  as  the  world, 
I  can  decide  in  one  second  which  I  would 
choose. 

[91] 


THE    STANDSTILLS   OF   LIFE 

YOU  are  traveling  a  crowded,  narrow 
thoroughfare.  The  stream  of  human- 
ity advances  slowly  and  with  many  turns 
and  twists.  In  the  street  the  drays,  wagons, 
and  motor  vehicles  barely  crawl  along.  Sud- 
denly everything  stops.  Something  has  hap- 
pened to  impede  further  progress  in  any 
direction.  It  makes  no  difference  how  impor- 
tant your  engagement  somewhere  else,  you 
must  wait  until  the  policeman  straightens 
out  the  tangle. 

Sometimes  in  the  early  spring  after  a  mild 
period  that  has  started  the  buds  there  comes 
a  succession  of  chilly,  dreary  days.  The  faint 
signs  of  new  vegetation  grow  no  more  pro- 
nounced. It  looks  as  if  there  has  been  a 
relapse  into  winter  and  you  say,  "Summer 
will  never  come." 

The  business  of  a  great  nation,  which  has 
moved  forward  for  a  number  of  years  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  returning  rich  rewards  to 
those  who  conduct  it,  suddenly  suffers  an 
arrest.  The  chill  of  an  inexplicable  fear  lays 
its  paralyzing   hand   upon   many  industries. 

[92] 


STANDSTILLS    OF    LIFE 

"The  country  is  all  right,"  you  say,  "but 
there  is  no  gainsaying  the  fact  that  we  have 
come  to  a  halt  for  the  present."  A  reform 
movement  is  strongly  inaugurated  and  moves 
on  splendidly  for  a  while.  But  before  long 
the  wheels  drive  hard.  Popular  interest 
flags.  The  champions  of  this  worthy  cause 
are  subjected  to  ridicule  and  even  abuse. 
It  begins  to  look  as  if  they  were  visionary 
and  too  much  in  advance  of  public  senti- 
ment. The  movement  halts  or  even  appar- 
ently recedes. 

A  strong,  ambitious  man  with  far-reaching 
plans  only  half  realized  is  suddenly  laid  low 
on  a  bed  of  illness.  The  interests  with  which 
he  has  been  identified  suffer.  Another  may 
be  found  to  take  up  his  work,  at  least  in  part, 
but  his  own  career  halts  for  a  time,  the  length 
of  which  he  can  only  conjecture;  invalidism 
holds  him  as  its  prisoner. 

Now  what  shall  we  say  about  these  stand- 
stills of  life  which  in  one  form  or  another 
few  of  us  escape?  First,  that,  irritating  as 
they  are,  they  are  meant  to  make  us  broader 
and  better  men  and  women.  We  may  be 
too  intent  on  one  end.  We  must  be  made 
to  think  about  something  else  for  a  little 
while.     We   may   be   and   probably   are   far 

[93] 


REAL    RELIGION 


too  self-absorbed  and  self-centered.  So  we 
are  suddenly,  and,  as  we  think,  almost  ruth- 
lessly halted  in  order  that  our  thought  and 
sympathy  may  flow  out  in  other  directions. 

Again  the  period  of  standstill  may  be 
utilized  by  us  to  good  advantage.  While 
you  are  waiting  for  the  street  blockade  to 
cease  you  can  patronize  the  apple  woman, 
or  send  your  thought  above  high  buildings 
to  the  blue  dome  of  heaven.  While  business 
halts,  you  can  reexamine  your  commercial 
methods  and  projects  in  the  light  of  the 
highest  ethical  standards.  While  your  pet 
reform  sufl'ers  a  temporary  eclipse  you  can 
ask  whether  the  intensity  of  your  zeal  is 
matched  with  a  spirit  of  patience  and  a 
good  temper  that  refuses  to  be  disconcerted 
even  under  adverse  criticism.  While  you 
are  ill  you  can  make  your  sick-room  as 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  Henry  Drum- 
mond  made  theirs,  a  place  of  peace  and  of 
unfailing  cheeriness  for  those  who  resort 
thither. 

Depend  upon  it,  the  standstills  of  life  are 
among  its  most  blessed  boons.  They  have 
their  great  compensations,  and  whatever  is 
worth  while  in  our  characters  and  in  our 
purposes  will  suffer  no  permanent  arrest. 

[94] 


SNAP  JUDGMENTS 

WHAT  an  ungracious  thing  It  was  In 
that  dignified  banker  to  refuse  to 
recognize  you  on  the  street  the  other  day. 
It  is  not  the  first  time,  either,  that  he  has 
been  so  discourteous.  It  cannot  be  that 
he  did  not  know  you,  for  you  have  talked 
with  him  half  a  dozen  times.  It"  must  be 
that  he  is  an  aristocrat,  pure  and  simple. 

The  young  woman  who  conversed  so  vol- 
ubly at  the  boarding-house  table  the  other 
night,  in  fact  monopolizing  the  conversation 
and  dealing  .chiefly  in  frivolities,  surely  can- 
not stand  for  much  in  the  intellectual  or 
moral  realm.  A  pity  it  is  that  so  many  of 
our  American  girls  are  given  over  to  dress, 
display,  and  society  chit-chat,  with  no  interest 
in  better  things. 

How  lacking  in  neighborhood  spirit  is  that 
family  which  moved  into  the  big  house  on 
the  boulevard  a  few  months  ago !  The  mem- 
bers do  not  seem  disposed  either  to  make  or 
to  return  calls.  They  seldom  show  them- 
selves at  public  gatherings.  Evidently  they 
consider  themselves  quite  above  the  ordinary 

[95] 


REAL    RELIGION 


run  of  their  fellow  men  and  are  entirely  lack- 
ing in  community  spirit. 

Is  there  any  stingier  man  in  town  than 
the  rich  merchant  who  turns  down  so  many 
subscription  papers  presented  to  him  at  his 
office?  He  could  easily  afford  to  subsidize 
almost  any  of  the  causes  which  seek  his 
charity.  He  must  be  hoarding  all  his  money 
for  his  distant  relatives  since  he  has  no  near 
ones. 

Thus  we  go  on  adding  snap  judgment  to 
snap  judgment,  basing  our  impressions  on  a 
very  limited  acquaintance,  and  not  hesita- 
ting to  circulate  our  opinion  broadcast.  Now 
what  are  the  facts? 

The  courtly  old  banker  is  really  every  inch 
a  gentleman.  He  would  never  knowingly 
slight  any  one.  But  he  often  gets  absorbed 
in  trains  of  thought  which  so  preoccupy  his 
mind  that,  as  he  walks  along  the  street,  he 
practically  sees  no  one,  or  if  his  gaze  happens 
to  rest  upon  others  they  have  no  more  indi- 
viduality than  the  lamp-posts.  It  may  be 
an  unfortunate  habit,  but  it  gives  no  true 
idea  of  his  real  disposition. 

She  whom  you  denominated  frivolous  was 
trying  to  liven  up  a  rather  somber  company 
around  the  dinner-table  and  she  was   espe- 

[96] 


SNAP    JUDGMENTS 

cially  anxious  to  lift  her  aunt,  whose  pro- 
tege she  is,  out  of  the  dumps.  This  is  the 
reason  why  her  conversation  rippled  along. 
She  was  trying  to  recall  the  interesting  and 
laughable  incidents  of  the  day  for  the  sake 
of  others,  when  it  would  have  been  much 
more  agreeable  to  her  to  keep  silent.  The 
truth  is,  she  is  a  wide  reader  and  a  thorough 
student.  She  gives  an  afternoon  each  week 
to  visit  among  the  poor.  She  dresses  well, 
but  why  shouldn't  she?  She  has  plenty  of 
money.  But  she  is  far  from  being  a  heart- 
less society  girl. 

And  that  family  that  holds  itself  so  aloof 
from  the  life  of  the  town  has  its  own  special 
sorrow.  There  are  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons why  t-hey  do  not  invite  people  to  their 
home  or  mingle  in  the  life  of  the  neighbor- 
hood. Some  time  the  skeleton  in  the  closet 
will  depart  and  then  their  neighbors  will 
know  how  good  and  friendly  they  really 
are. 

The  stingy  curmudgeon  who  turns  down 
the  subscription  papers  gives  every  week  far 
more  money  than  most  of  his  critics  give  in 
ten  years.  He  has  a  large  number  of  private 
charities;  he  makes  a  specialty  of  widows  and 
orphans.     He  bestows  many  gifts  where  the 

[97] 


REAL    RELIGION 


name  of  the  donor  is  never  known  to  the  re- 
cipient. He  is  averse  to  subscription  papers 
and  he  does  not  care  to  exploit  his  own  per- 
sonaHty  by  affixing  his  name  to  libraries, 
schools,  and  colleges. 

Let  us  beware  of  snap  judgments.  Let 
us  construe  our  fellow  men,  their  motives  and 
actions,  in  a  large,  generous  fashion.  If  it  is 
possible  to  infer  something  to  their  credit 
from  their  behavior,  even  though  on  the  sur- 
face it  might  appear  rather  discreditable  to 
them,  let  us  seek,  if  possible,  to  discover  and 
promulgate  a  more  favorable  interpretation, 
and  in  cases  where  that  more  favorable  con- 
struction does  not  easily  appear,  why  not 
suspend  judgment  for  a  while .^ 

Remember,  too,  that  we  are  all  liable  to 
be  the  victims  of  snap  judgments.  The  great 
teacher  of  Nazareth  spoke  golden  words 
when  he  said  to  his  disciples,  *' Judge  not, 
that  ye  be  not  judged.  For  with  what  .  .  . 
measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  unto 
you  again." 


I98] 


THE   ART  OF   APPRECIATION 

ONCE  on  a  time  a  lad  employed  in  a 
home  of  wealth  and  culture,  much  to 
everybody's  surprise,  gave  up  his  job  of  run- 
ning errands  and  scouring  the  brasses,  and 
departed.  A  friend  asked  him  why  he  had 
acted  thus.  "Weren't  you  well  fed.?"  "Yes." 
"Weren't  you  well  paid.?"  "Yes."  "Weren't 
you  well  treated.?"  "Yes."  "What  was  the 
matter  then.?"  "Well,  I'll  tell  you.  They 
treated  me  well  enough  and  it's  likely  that 
at  the  next  place  I  won't  get  as  much  money 
_or  as  comfortable  a  bed.  But  I  just  wanted 
them  to  say'once  in  a  while,  *  Well  done,  little 
oe. 
Little  Joe  spoke  for  a  great  many  people 
besides  himself.  After  one  has  done  his  little 
best  over  and  over  again,  and  studied  to 
please  in  every  particular,  he  is  hardly  human 
if  he  does  not  crave  a  bit  of  appreciation. 
Not  that  the  right-minded  person  cares  for 
flattery.  He  abhors  that  and  suspects  the 
one  who  brings  it  of  some  ulterior  designs. 
But  appreciation  is  an  altogether  different 
article  from  fawning  praise.     It  is  the  just 

[991 


REAL    RELIGION 


and  accurate  estimate  of  work  done  and 
service  rendered. 

How  many  persons  who  receive  benefits  of 
various  kinds  accept  them  quite  as  a  matter 
of  course.  A  friend  of  mine,  through  his 
personal  influence  at  Washington,  helped  to 
secure  a  pension  for  the  widow  of  a  soldier. 
It  amounted  to  several  hundred  dollars  annu- 
ally, and  when  I  remarked,  "She  must  have 
been  mighty  grateful  to  you,''  my  friend  re- 
plied with  a  cynical  little  shrug,  "She  never 
thanked  me." 

Let  there  be  more  appreciativeness  in  the 
home.  You'll  get  quicker  and  more  com- 
plete obedience  from  that  fine  but  sometimes 
very  perplexing  boy  of  yours  if  you  make 
him  aware  that  you  note  with  approval  the 
struggles  he  does  make  to  toe  the  mark,  the 
self-denial  he  now  and  then  practises  in  order 
to  comply  with  your  wishes.  To  bring  up 
children  in  an  atmosphere  which  lacks  the 
elements  that  parental  fondness  and  appre- 
ciativeness contribute  to  it  is  like  putting  a 
tender  tropical  plant  into  the  hard,  cold 
ground  on  a  November  day.  Children  in 
the  home,  pupils  in  the  school  thrive  and 
blossom  into  strong  and  lovely  characters 
when  they  have  the  proper  amount  of  ap- 
[  loo  ] 


ART    OF    APPRECIATION 

preciation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  boys  and 
girls  themselves  need  to  appreciate  their 
parents,  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  in  this 
age,  when  parents  are  doing  more  for  their 
children  than  ever  before,  there  has  not  been 
a  corresponding  increase  of  deference  and 
considerateness  on  the  part  of  the  children. 

In  the  shop  and  factory  there  is  the  same 
righteous  demand  for  appreciation,  not  of 
laziness  or  slipshod  work,  but  of  fidelity,  of 
long-continued  acceptable  service,  of  the  con- 
tribution which  even  the  humblest  worker  is 
making  to  the  success  of  the  concern.  Our 
labor  problem  would  be  nearer  solution  if  em- 
ployers oftener  said,  "Well  done,  little  Joe." 

The  church  is  another  field  for  the  exercise 
of  the  art  of  appreciation.  If  your  pastor 
helps  you,  tell  him  so.  Don't  be  afraid  of 
spoiling  him.  Ministers  don't  spoil  so  easily 
nowadays.  That  was  a  beautiful  motto 
which  a  church  once  put  on  the  wall  to 
welcome  a  pastor  returning  from  a  long 
vacation,  "We  love  you  and  we  tell  you  so." 

Let's  begin  this  next  week  and  be  more 
appreciative.  And  does  not  courtesy,  to 
say  nothing  now  of  higher  considerations, 
demand  that  now  and  then,  at  least,  we 
say  "Thank  you"  to  God.? 
[lOl] 


OUR  HUMAN  ISLANDS 

DID  you  ever  live  or  sojourn  on  an 
island?  If  so,  can  you  remember 
lying  upon  the  sands  some  midsummer  day 
and  listening  to  the  gentle  splashing  of  the 
waters  or  watching  the  far-away  sails?  Your 
idle  revery  made  more  acute  your  sense  of 
detachment  from  the  mainland,  of  isolation 
from  the  great  world  of  affairs,  of  being 
shut  in  with  your  own  thoughts  and  emo- 
tions, and,  as  it  were,  cut  off  from  former 
associations  and  interests.  That  must  have 
been  the  feeling  of  the  great  Napoleon  when 
exiled  on  the  island  of  St.  Helena,  and  that 
must  have  made  the  punishment  peculiarly 
bitter  for  one  who  had  figured  so  conspicu- 
ously in  European  politics. 

Herein  is  a  parable.  We  are  all  more  or 
less  islanders.  We  send  out  our  little  boats 
that  meet,  salute,  and  pass  one  another  and 
perhaps  exchange  commodities,  but  still  we 
are  separated  by  great  gulfs  and  inlets  from 
our  fellow  men.  We  live  under  the  same 
roof  with  our  kindred,  we  work  in  the  same 
store  with  those  whom  we  have  known  from 
[  102] 


OUR    HUMAN    ISLANDS 

childhood,  we  go  in  and  out  on  the  trains 
year  after  year  with  the  same  people,  and 
yet  how  far  apart  we  may  be  from  them  in 
all  the  movement  of  our  inner  life,  in  our 
hopes  and  ideals,  in  our  thought  of  God 
and  duty  and  heaven.  Scientists  tell  us 
that  even  the  tiny  molecules  do  not  touch 
one  another,  but  whirl  about  in  space  in 
their  independent  orbits.  And  how  few 
human  lives  really  meet  and  melt  into  a 
common  purpose. 

Pathetic  from  some  points  of  view  indeed 
is  this  isolation.  It  certainly  makes  a  great 
appeal  for  charity  in  our  judgment  of  others. 
Said  a  woman  who  had  recently  lost  her 
husband,  "I  am  sorry  to  decline  invitations 
to  social  functions.  I  don't  want  to  be  self- 
ish in  my  grief,  but  whenever  I  go  to  places 
where  I  used  to  go  with  him,  the  sense  of  his 
absence  is  so  keen  that  I  can  hardly  bear  it. 
It  seems  as  if  I  were  living  on  an  island.  My 
life  is  so  partial,  so  incomplete,  so  broken, 
that  I  cannot  enter  heartily  and  joyously 
into  the  old  pleasures  and  merrymakings. 
My  greater  half  is  gone.  People  about  me 
do  not  begin  to  realize  how  far  away  in 
spirit  I  am  from  them."  This  widow  repre- 
sents the  great  army  of  the  bereaved,  toward 
[103] 


REAL    RELIGION 


whom  we  who  have  not  thus  suffered  should 
extend  the  utmost  consideration  and  not  let 
our  own  joy  in  earthly  things  jar  upon  their 
lonely  spirits. 

Sympathy  and  tact  are  needed,  too.  There 
comes  a  time  when  every  growing  boy  draws 
apart  from  his  mother.  She  finds  it  hard  to 
understand  his  reserve;  she  yearns  for  the 
old  confidential  relationship.  But  let  her 
not  chafe  under  the  new  conditions.  Her 
boy  is  undergoing  those  pangs  of  self-dis- 
covery which  accompany  the  first  experience 
of  adolescence;  he  is  coming  to  a  knowledge 
of  his  own  individuality;  he  will  have  to 
dwell  apart  for  a  time  on  his  island.  But  if 
he  has  been  surrounded  by  right  influences 
hitherto,  he  will  in  due  time  reestablish  the 
precious  relationship  with  his  mother,  though 
on  a  different  plane. 

The  girl  comes  home,  having  completed 
her  college  course.  She  is  no  longer  a  girl, 
but  a  young  woman.  It  is  hard  for  her  to 
adjust  herself  to  her  old  place  in  the  family. 
Her  parents  feel  a  difference  in  her.  Mis- 
understandings may  easily  grow  up  if  the 
parents  insist  on  too  great  close  conformity 
to  former  practises.  Give  her  time  to  work 
out  her  personal  problem.  As  she  retires 
[  104] 


OUR    HUMAN    ISLANDS 

into  her  island,  believe  that  she  will  learn 
lessons  there  to  be  gained  nowhere  else. 

On  the  other  hand,  people  conscious  of  the 
gulf  between  them  and  others  should  beware 
of  becoming  narrow  and  provincial.  One 
whose  own  life  has  become  sharply  defined 
from  others  should  not  be  proud  of  his 
isolation  nor  let  the  spirit  of  reticence  and 
detachment  grow  upon  him.  We  are  still 
a  part  of  the  human  race,  sharers  in  the 
great  elemental  human  passions.  We  must 
not  become  hermits  and  anchorites. 

The  last  book  of  the  Bible  was  written  by 
a  man  living  on  an  island,  who  apparently 
fretted  sometimes  over  his  limitations  and 
looked  eagerly  forward  to  the  time  when 
there  shoulS  be  "no  more  sea"  cutting  him 
off  from  continents  and  empires.  And  the 
ideal  for  all  of  us  sooner  or  later  is  so  to  link 
our  lives  to  others  that,  without  sacrificing 
our  personality,  we  shall  feel  the  thrill  and 
inspiration  of  kinship  with  humanity.  That 
time  ought  to  come  sooner  or  later  for  all  of 
us.     As  a  poet  has  said, 

"  When  we  are  dead,  when  you  and  I  are  dead, 
Have  rent  and  tossed  aside  each  earthly  fetter, 
Have  wiped  the  grave  dust  from  our  wondering  eyes, 
And  stand  together  fronting  the  sunrise, 
I  think  that  we  shall  know  each  other  better." 

[105] 


REAL    RELIGION 


But  we  need  not  wait  for  death  to  bring 
us  into  closer,  tenderer  relations  to  others. 
While  we  arc  still  island  dwellers,  we  may 
hoist  our  beacons  and  send  forth  over  the 
waves  the  gleam  of  a  friendly  light. 


[io6] 


THE  RESERVES  IN  HUMAN  NATURE 

NOTHING  is  more  admirable  in  the 
being  called  man  than  the  power  he 
possesses  to  rise  to  an  emergency  and  by 
drawing  upon  his  reserves  to  meet  bravely 
an  unexpected  test  or  carry  to  successful 
conclusion  a  difficult  undertaking. 

Think  of  the  reserves  of  patience  which  en- 
able the  mother,  for  example,  to  endure  the 
demands  which  careless  and  sometimes  irri- 
tating children  make  upon  her.  The  child- 
less woman  looks  on  with  wonder.  She  has 
never  taken  any  lessons  in  the  school  of 
parenthood  'and  therefore  she  has  not  stored 
up  a  supply  of  that  particular  grace  which 
a  mother  needs.  And  the  manual  laborer 
is  another  person  whose  supply  of  patience 
challenges  respect.  He  has  to  have  it  in 
order  to  keep  at  his  monotonous  task  day 
after  day  and  fulfil  with  almost  machine- 
like precision  his  part  in  the  social  and  in- 
dustrial scheme.  There  are  in  many  a  man 
also  reserves  of  heroism.  As  you  see  Smith 
or  Jones  on  the  prosaic  plane  of  their  daily 
existence,  you  might  not  pick  either  of  them 
[107] 


REAL    RELIGION 


out  as  conspicuous  examples  of  the  heroic, 
and  they  are  both,  like  the  rest  of  us,  blends 
of  strength  and  weakness.  But  wait  a  bit. 
Something  may  happen  tonight  or  tomorrow 
that  will  make  this  same  Jones  or  Smith  a 
popular  hero.  He  will  be  rushing  into  a 
burning  building  and  rescuing  a  sleeping 
child,  or  he  will  stand  at  his  post  on  the 
front  of  the  car  when  by  jumping  he  might 
avoid  a  serious  accident  that  may  maim  him 
for  life.  Or  he  will  meet  some  financial  re- 
verse or  some  personal  bereavement  with  a 
fortitude  of  which  we  had  never  suspected 
him  to  be  capable. 

"Hurrah  for  Jones!"  we  will  be  saying. 
What  good  stuff  there  is  in  him,  isn't  there.'* 
Even  more  beautiful  and  inspiring  are  the 
reserves  of  kindness  and  generosity  which 
multitudes  of  men  and  women  possess  and 
draw  upon  readily  when  they  are  demanded. 
The  world  is  far  more  tender  than  it  was  in 
former  ages.  How  the  millions  of  dollars  do 
roll  up  when  a  great  catastrophe  does  its 
devastating. work!  Cheerful,  unforced  giving 
it  is,  the  fruit  of  real  sympathy  and  pity. 
Bravo  for  human  nature,  we  say  again,  as  men 
of  all  creeds  and  no  creeds  unite  to  mitigate 
the  woes  of  sufferers  thousands  of  miles  away. 
[io8] 


HUMAN    NATURE 


And  what  we  witness  on  a  large  scale  is 
duplicated  daily  in  every  city  and  hamlet  of 
the  land  on  a  small  scale  as  neighbor  goes  to 
neighbor  on  some  errand  of  help  or  comfort, 
as  friend  stands  by  friend  in  distress,  as 
brothers  spring  to  the  succor  of  their  brothers 
who  have  fallen  behind  in  the  race. 

Yes,  indeed,  this  poor  weak  humanity  of 
ours  is  capable  of  far  greater  things  than  is 
often  realized.  And  each  individual  can  do 
more  and  bear  more,  and  when  the  pinch 
comes  lend  a  stronger  hand  to  others  than 
we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  doing,  if  we 
will  only  call  out  our  reserves.  And  we  can 
face  temptation,  too,  and  down  it  in  reliance 
upon  these  same  reserves  of  character.  We 
need  never,  even  when  sorely  pressed,  yield 
a  single  point  to  the  enemy  of  our  souls  if 
we  bethink  ourselves  of  the  reenforcements 
within  easy  call. 

Of  course,  the  securing  of  these  reserves 
is  a  matter  of  forethought  and  of  planning. 
We  shall  never  have  any  reserves  in  the  bank 
to  draw  upon  when  the  proverbial  rainy  day 
comes,  if  we  do  not  begin  to  save  now.  We 
shall  never  have  any  funds  of  valuable  infor- 
mation to  enrich  our  lives  and  the  lives  of 
others  unless  we  improve  our  present  chance 
[109] 


REAL    RELIGION 


to  study,  read,  and  acquire  facts  and  truths. 
We  shall  never  have  any  reserves  of  virtue 
which  may  save  the  day  for  us,  as  the  arrival 
of  Bliicher  saved  the  day  for  Wellington  at 
Waterloo,  unless  we  commence  at  once  to 
lead  virtuous,  self-denying,  and  sympathetic 
lives. 


[no] 


THE   GOOD   LISTENER 

ON  my  morning  walk  I  frequently  find 
myself  behind  two  gentlemen  who 
usually  accompany  each  other  to  their  places 
of  business.  Both  are  men  of  culture  and  of 
standing  in  the  community.  Yet  I  notice 
that  one  does  nearly  all  the  talking.  He 
seems  extremely  interested  in  his  own  views 
and  presents  them  to  his  companion  with 
much  animation.  Sometimes  he  gesticulates 
vigorously.  I  am  seldom  near  enough  to  play 
unintentionally  the  part  of  eavesdropper,  but 
I  should  judge  that  a  variety  of  timely  and 
profitable' themes  were  being  discussed,  as 
might  naturally  be  expected  when  men  get 
to  be  pretty  intimate  acquaintances.  But 
the  silence  of  one  of  these  men  and  the 
volubility  of  the  other  are  what  impress  me, 
and  I  find  myself  wishing  that  the  lips  of 
Mr.  Ready-to-Talk  would  be  sealed  for  a 
while  in  order  to  give  the  man  who  listens 
to  him  with  such  uniform  politeness  a 
chance  to  air  his  views;  for  being  a  man  of 
ideas  and  of  convictions,  he  certainly  has 
something  well  worth  saying. 

[Ill] 


REAL    RELIGION 


These  men  represent  two  types.  One  has 
cultivated  the  art  of  expression  and  the 
other  the  art  of  listening.  One  art  is  per- 
haps as  important  as  the  other,  but  does  not 
the  listening  capacity  come  first  in  order  of 
time?  If  as  a  child  you  did  not  listen  to 
your  parents,  your  teacher,  your  minister, 
if  you  did  not  learn  to  hold  your  attention 
firmly  upon  the  speaker,  if  you  did  not  gain 
some  comprehension  of  the  fact  that  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  depends  on  the 
ability  to  listen  at  the  right  time  and  in 
the  right  way  to  the  right  person,  then 
you  are  to  be  pitied.  The  single,  beautiful 
glimpse  we  have  of  the  boyhood  of  the  Per- 
fect Child  reveals  him  in  the  temple  among 
the  doctors  *'both  hearing  them,  and  asking 
them  questions."  Even  one  possessed  with 
wisdom  far  beyond  his  years  needed  to  main- 
tain all  through  his  life  the  attitude  of  a 
listener. 

When  we  undertake  to  cooperate  with 
others  we  find  it  essential  to  listen  to  what 
they  have  to  say.  Have  you  never  talked 
with  a  person  who,  you  were  absolutely  sure, 
was  not  hearing  a  word  you  said,  though  for 
politeness'  sake  he  tried  to  appear  as  if  he 
were  listening.^  But  he  was  only  waiting 
[112] 


THE    GOOD    LISTENER 

for  you  to  get  through  so  that  he  could 
ventilate  his  own  opinions.  A  genuine  con- 
versation with  that  sort  of  person  is  an 
impossibility.  He  is  to  all  practical  pur- 
poses a  soliloquist.  He  seeks  your  society 
for  the  moment,  not  because  he  wants  to 
know  your  views,  but  because  he  cannot 
repress  his  own  any  longer. 

The  more  civil  attitude,  the  attitude  which 
enables  men  actually  to  confer  on  subjects  of 
common  interest,  presupposes  that  one's  own 
information  is  not  complete  and  that  the 
other  man  or  the  other  group  of  men  has 
something  to  oifer  which  will  instruct  and 
enrich  you. 

These  are  days  when  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  'for  each  of  us  to  cultivate  the 
listening  attitude,  to  be  hospitable  to  new 
ideas,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  informing 
ourselves  as  to  exactly  what  those  who  ad- 
vocate them  mean.  Here  is  a  new  theory 
of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  here  is  a  new 
program  for  our  social  and  industrial  rela- 
tionships. Why  should  we  close  our  ears 
to  its  advocates?  Who  knows-  but  we  may 
hear  something  to  our  lasting  advantage? 
There  are  voices  not  of  earth  to  which  it 
pays  us  to  turn  a  listening  ear  occasionally. 

[1131 


REAL    RELIGION 


There  is  no  deafness  so  deplorable  as  that 
which  prevents  us  from  hearing  what  God 
would  say  to  us,  in  the  quiet  of  the  dawn 
or  in  the  lull  that  comes  at  sunset,  in  the 
solitude  of  the  woods  and  along  crowded 
human  highways.  Let  us  take  to  heart 
Longfellow's  exquisite  lines: 

"  Listen  to  voices  in  the  upper  air, 
Lose  not  thy  simple  faith  in  mysteries. 


[114] 


HUMAN    BEINGS   AS    LINKS 

"T'M  only  a  link,"  said  one  of  the  most 
X  useful  women  in  the  world  laughingly 
the  other  day.  She  was  referring  to  the 
fact  that  she  had  recently  been  the  means 
of  bringing  together  a  youth  who  wanted 
to  work  and  an  employer  of  labor  who  was 
looking  for  that  kind  of  a  fellow.  That  is 
just  what  she  has  been  doing  in  one  way  and 
another  all  the  sixty  years  of  her  modest 
and  unselfish  career.  A  wide  acquaintance 
in  the  working  classes,  together  with  an 
entree  into  circles  of  wealth  and  influence, 
has  given  her  the  joy  and  privilege  of  act- 
ing as  a  go-between  in  almost  innumerable 
cases.  So  if  there  is  in  her  community  a 
middle-aged  spinster  desirous  of  a  position 
as  housekeeper,  or  a  lady  wanting  a  com- 
panion for  a  European  trip,  or  a  weary 
mother  eager  for  a  helper  with  her  children, 
or  a  young  man  anxious  for  a  chance  to 
work  for  his  board  while  taking  a  course 
in  architecture  or  engineering,  or  a  Sunday- 
school  superintendent  seeking  in  despair  a 
bright  teacher  for  a  class  of  restless  boys,  it 

[IIS] 


REAL    RELIGION 


has  come  to  be  a  matter  of  course  for  those 
acquainted  with  the  situation  to  say,  "Oh, 
go  to  Miss  Greatheart,  she'll  know  the  right 
party." 

We  all  owe  a  good  deal  to  the  people  who 
serve  as  links  between  ourselves  and  some- 
thing worth  having.  Think  over  the  good 
things  that  have  come  to  you  through  the 
years  and  see  if  they  are  not  associated  with 
some  individuals  who  served  as  the  medium. 
The  teacher  who  induced  you  to  choose  a 
certain  career,  the  friend  who  introduced 
you  to  the  woman  who  became  your  wife, 
the  minister  who  conducted  you  to  the 
point  where  you  made  connection  with  some 
great  and  inspiring  truth  —  what  were  they 
but  links,  and  because  they  did  their  duty  as 
links  you  are  where  you  are  today.  And 
so  in  a  multitude  of  lesser  instances  the 
human  link  was  equally  important  even  if 
those  who  served  as  such  were  not  always 
conscious  of  the  favor  they  were  doing  you. 

One  day  years  ago  a  young  man  was  stand- 
ing on  the  banks  of  an  Oriental  river  with 
two  companions.  Suddenly  a  fourth  young 
man  appeared.  "Behold  him,"  remarked 
the  leader  to  the  other  two,  and  there  was 
something  in  the  radiant  countenance  of  the 
[u6] 


HUMAN    BEINGS    AS    LINKS 

stranger  and  something  in  the  tone  in  which 
their  friend  referred  to  him  that  led  the  two 
to  follow  up  the  stranger.  After  cultivating 
his  acquaintance  a  few  hours  they  went  forth 
to  say  the  same  word,  "Behold,"  to  their 
own  particular  friends,  and  from  that  day 
to  this  the  Christian  Church  has  been  re- 
cruited because  one  and  another  have  been 
willing  to  say,  "Behold,"  and  thus  to  serve 
as  links  between  the  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity and  those  who  had  not  made  his 
acquaintance. 

To  be  a  good  link  requires,  it  is  true, 
some  self-effacement  and  much  considera- 
tion for  others.  A  young  woman  started 
on  a  journey  the  other  day  and  just  as  the 
train  moved  'out  of  the  station  a  gentleman 
entered  whom  she  knew,  accompanied  by  a 
young  woman  whom  he  placed  in  the  next 
seat.  Then  he  introduced  the  young  women, 
saying,  "You'll  have  a  good  talk  together 
on  your  way."  Ah,  but  that  was  just  what 
young  lady  number  one  didn't  want,  for  she 
was  tired.  But  overcoming  her  reluctance 
she  entered  on  a  long  and  what  proved  to 
be  a  mutually  interesting  conversation.  As  a 
result  young  woman  number  two  is  in  social 
settlement  work  in   the    Hawaiian    Islands 

[117] 


REAL    RELIGION 


today.  That  outcome  was  furthest  from  her 
thoughts  when  she  entered  the  train,  and 
she  owes  her  present  place  to  the  fact  that 
her  chance  acquaintance  on  the  train  who 
knew  of  the  position  took  pains  then  and 
later  to  guide  her  to  it. 

Every  good  person,  from  the  statesman 
striving  to  bind  the  nations  closer  together 
to  the  humblest  mother  strengthening  the 
ties  between  her  children  and  God  and 
truth,  is  a  link,  and  there  is  no  more  hon- 
orable calling  in  life. 


[ii8] 


ONE  GOOD  LIFE 

MUCK-RAKING  and  cynicism  to  the 
contrary,  the  world  is  full  of  good 
lives.  All  about  us  are  men  and  women  as 
pure  as  gold  and  as  true  as  steel.  They  are 
not  perfect,  but  are  in  the  process  of  becoming 
perfect.  We  ought  not  to  overlook  them  in 
this  age  when  the  seamy  side  of  life  so  often 
flaunts  itself  in  our  face.  We  ought  not  to 
be  so  absorbed  in  our  quest  for  wealth  or 
pleasure  as  to  fail  to  do  them  honor.  The 
attention  which  they  get  in  the  newspapers 
is  no  measure  of  their  worth  or  influence. 
They  are  the  salt  that  keeps  our  civiliza- 
tion from  decay,  the  leaven  that  is  grad- 
ually purifying  the  world. 

I  want  briefly  to  tell  the  story  of  one 
good  life  that  has  just  gone  out,  or,  it  would 
be  truer  to  say,  gone  forward  at  the  age  of 
fourscore.  The  notice  of  her  death  occu- 
pied about  four  lines  in  the  press  of  the 
city  where  she  had  lived  most  of  her  days. 
She  was  an  "old  maid"  and  she  lived  much 
of  her  life  in  a  boarding-house.  She  was 
a  wage-earner  until  advancing  age  made  it 

[119] 


REAL    RELIGION 


impossible  to  go  to  and  fro  to  her  daily 
tasks.  In  her  declining  years  she  had  to 
accept  the  friendly  service  of  those  not  of 
her  kin,  for  she  outlived  her  relatives. 
She  had  to  pass  through  one  of  the  bitterest 
of  all  experiences;  namely,  that  of  being  set 
one  side  from  the  busy  world  and  of  being 
compelled  in  comparative  obscurity,  and  for- 
gotten by  many  who  once  knew  her,  to  await 
the  will  of  God. 

This  woman  never  knew  the  comfort  of  a 
home  of  her  own,  the  bliss  of  happy  wife- 
hood, the  exquisite  joy  of  motherhood,  the 
wholesome  delights  that  go  with  a  circle  of 
lovely  and  interesting  friends.  Her  working 
days,  prolonged  far  beyond  those  of  most 
working  women,  were  laborious  and  monot- 
onous. Vacations  were  infrequent  and  brief. 
As  the  world  estimates  values  she  lived  a 
narrow,  dull,  and  tiresome  life. 

But  did  she.^  Let  me  tell  you  what  the 
minister  said  at  her  funeral.  He  had  known 
her  long  and  well  and  all  that  he  said  was 
corroborated  by  those  associated  with  her 
day  by  day.  Three  qualities,  he  remarked, 
shone  in  her.  The  first  was  steadfastness. 
She  could  be  counted  on  to  reach  the  estab- 
lishment punctually  in  the  morning  and  all 
[120] 


ONE    GOOD    LIFE 


day  long  to  do  her  work  promptly  and 
thoroughly.  The  next  quality  was  quiet- 
ness. The  fever  of  this  hustling,  rustling  age 
never  made  her  nervous  and  excitable.  An 
atmosphere  of  tranquillity  perpetually  sur- 
rounded her.  The  next  trait  was  cheerfulness. 
Though  every  day  brought  its  temptations  to 
irritability  she  succeeded  in  wearing  a  happy 
countenance.  She  saw  the  funny  side  of  fussy 
and  disagreeable  people  who  made  all  sorts 
of  unreasonable  demands  upon  her  and  she 
would  slip  a  quiet  little  chuckle  up  her  sleeve 
as  she  discerned  the  foibles  of  her  fellow 
men.  She  found  it  possible  to  be  uniformly 
pleasant  even  in  a  boarding-house.  These 
three  qualities,  the  minister  went  on  to 
say,  made  Her  efficient.  She  actually  accom- 
plished a  vast  deal  of  useful  work  during  her 
long  lifetime.  The  possession  of  such  quali- 
ties —  steadfastness,  quietness,  and  good 
temper  —  will  make  any  one  capable  and  of 
service  in  the  world. 

Now  this  is  not  an  obituary  of  a  brilliant 
woman,  but  a  side-light  or  two  upon  a  typical 
average  good  life.  We  all  know  such  lives 
among  our  friends  and  acquaintances.  It  is 
well  to  strew  flowers  upon  the  graves  of  our 
heroic  dead,  to  compose  long  eulogies  of  men 

[I2I] 


REAL    RELIGION 


and  women  of  distinction,  but  let  the  praises 
of  inconspicuous  goodness  also  be  sung. 

A  good  life — what  a  priceless  contribu- 
tion it  makes  to  human  welfare  and  progress! 
When  such  lives  go  from  us,  let  us  thank  God 
for  them;  while  they  are  still  with  us  let  us 
revere  and  cherish  them. 

**The  dear  Lord's  best  interpreters 

Are  humble,  human  souls; 
The  gospel  of  a  life  like  theirs 

Is  more  than  books  or  scrolls. 
From  scheme  and  creed  the  light  goes  out, 

The  saintly  fact  survives, 
The  blessed  Master  none  can  doubt, 

Revealed  in  holy  lives." 


[122] 


o 


A   MAN   AND   HIS    ECHO 

NE  of  the  earliest  and  most  vivid  rec- 
ollections of  boyhood  days  is  in  con- 
nection with  a  visit  to  a  farmer  uncle,  who 
took  me  where  I  could  hear  a  famous  echo. 
As  he  threw  his  powerful  voice  against 
the  cliffs  a  number  of  yards  away,  back  it 
came  to  him,  repeating  almost  instantly  and 
with  wonderful  clearness  his  exact  words. 
It  seemed  to  my  boyish  fancy  a  remarkable 
thing  that  there  could  be  such  a  reproduc- 
tion of  human  tone  after  it  had  once  left  the 
lips.  But  since  then  I  have  heard  other 
echoes,  some  of  them  quite  noted  ones,  and 
I  have  come  to  apprehend  the  laws  of 
sound  governing  their  production.  But  an 
echo  is  still  to  me  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing and  suggestive  of  natural  phenomena. 

As  I  have  gone  on  in  years,  I  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  encounter  the  echoes  of 
human  lives  that  have  transmitted  some- 
thing of  their  personality  to  me  long 
after  they  have  vanished  from  the  earth. 
The  first  was  the  echo  of  a  soldier  uncle 
who  fainted  under  the  rays  of  the  fierce 
[123] 


REAL    RELIGION 


southern  sun,  giving  his  life  for  his  country 
just  as  truly  as  if  he  had  fallen  in  battle 
when  charging  the  foe.  I  was  but  a  wee 
baby  when  he  marched  bravely  away  with 
his  regiment  and,  of  course,  he  never  in- 
fluenced me  personally,  but  in  the  forty 
years  since  he  met  a  soldier's  death,  echoes 
of  him  have  been  repeatedly  coming  to  my 
ears,  in  the  abundant  testimony  of  his  sur- 
viving comrades  to  his  manliness  and  kind- 
ness in  camp  and  on  the  march,  in  the 
tributes  to  his  sterling  Christian  character 
from  men  who  worked  at  the  same  car- 
penter's bench,  and  in  the  veneration  still 
felt  for  him  in  the  church  of  which  he  was 
a  modest  and  devoted  member. 

In  college  the  echoes  of  men  who  had  pre- 
ceded us  resounded  through  the  dormitories 
and  recitation  rooms.  Figures  that  we  never 
saw  became  real  to  the  eye  of  the  imagina- 
tion as  we  learned  about  the  athletic  prowess 
of  this  man,  the  scholarly  achievements  of 
another,  the  rare  personal  charm  and  influ- 
ence of  still  another.  Every  great  school  has 
its  splendid  traditions  of  men  who  wrought 
nobly  in  student  days  and  then  went  out  to 
live  useful  and  honorable  lives. 

As  I  have  resided  in  one  community  after 
[124] 


A    MAN    AND    HIS    ECHO 

another,  I  have  always  heard  about  former 
residents  who  had  died  or  moved  away 
before  I  came,  but  who  were  still  held  in 
affectionate  esteem  and  whose  absence  was 
continually  mourned.  They  were  invari- 
ably the  progressive,  public-spirited  men 
who  could  be  relied  on  in  emergencies,  who 
helped  to  initiate  and  carry  through  under- 
takings bearing  on  the  public  welfare,  who 
were  not  always  scheming  to  get  what  they 
could  out  of  their  fellow  citizens,  but  to  con- 
tribute all  they  could  to  the  happiness  and 
prosperity  of  others. 

What  a  splendid  thing  it  is  to  leave  behind 
you  such  an  echo  that  the  Scripture  will 
be  literally  fulfilled,  ''He  being  dead  yet 
speaketh."  '  The  tone  quality  is  perpetuated 
in  what  others  say  and  think  about  you. 
It  pervades  the  region  to  such  an  extent 
that  those  who  come  after  us  cannot  help 
discovering  intimations  here  and  there  of 
what  we  were  and  what  we  did. 

What  cheer  there  is  also  in  this  thought 
for  those  of  us  who  feel  that  our  lives  are 
running  away  without  our  accomplishing 
much.  But  we  are  to  be  judged  not  simply 
by  the  impression  we  make  today,  but  by 
the  echo  that  will   come   back  days   hence 

[125] 


REAL    RELIGION 


to  those  who  may  never  see  us  in  the  flesh. 
"That  man  stood  for  the  right  when  it 
was  unpopular  to  do  so."  "That  woman 
gave  herself  most  patiently  and  unsparingly 
for  her  children."  "That  man  was  never 
too  busy  to  be  kind."  So  the  echoes  will 
come  back  in  one  form  and  another.  Much 
depends  on  the  man.  The  echo  of  Judas 
Iscariot's  life  still  reverberates  in  the  caverns 
and  the  tombs  of  human  life  while  the  echo 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  like  the  pealing  of 
sweet  bells  at  eventide. 


[126 


THE  MOTHER'S  PART 

SAID  a  well-known  public  speaker  the 
other  day  In  an  address  on  the  rela- 
tive rights  and  duties  of  husband  and  wife, 
"I  refuse  to  admit  that  I  am  the  only 
breadwinner  in  my  family.  I  consider  that 
my  wife  contributes  no  small  share  to  the 
ongoing  of  the  family  life."  Amen  to  that 
manly  sentiment!  Cold  cash  does  not  meas- 
ure, as  it  could  not  buy,  the  services  of  a 
mother  in  the  home,  for  which  she  usually 
gets  only  her  own  board  and  clothes.  No 
eight-hour  or  even  ten-hour  day  for  her. 
She  is  often  on  duty  from  sunrise  to  sunrise 
again.  If  she  were  paid  on  the  scale  that 
hired  girls  are  paid  she  might  have  a  snug 
little  sum  in  the  bank  at  the  end  of  the 
year.  Then,  again,  how  frequently  she  adds 
to  the  family  exchequer  by  holding  back  the 
husband  from  foolish  speculations.  Many  a 
woman  has  by  her  forethought,  prudence, 
and  thrift  saved  her  husband  from  financial 
ruin. 

This  is  the  lowest  plane  on  which  to  view 
the  work  of  a  mother.     She  constantly  has 
[127] 


REAL    RELIGION 


to  put  to  use  her  ingenuity  and  wit  in  be- 
half of  the  higher  interests  of  the  home.  She 
needs  and  she  often  possesses  the  insight  and 
judicial  qualities  of  a  justice  of  the  supreme 
court  in  order  to  settle  the  little  disputes 
between  the  children.  She  must  be  a  dip- 
lomat and  harmonize  conflicting  personali- 
ties. I  talked  the  other  evening  with  a 
mother  who  for  twenty-five  long  years  had 
played  the  part  of  peacemaker.  Her  hus- 
band's mother  had  always  lived  in  the  house 
and  had  been  always  lavish  of  her  criticisms 
of  the  children,  whom  she  considered  not 
nearly  as  perfect  as  her  own  son  had  been. 
So  the  grandchildren  had  grown  up  resent- 
ful of  grandma's  interference  and  harsh 
judgments,  and  the  gentle  mother  had  all 
she  could  do  to  keep  the  atmosphere  of  the 
home  sweet  and  friendly.  "But,"  she  said 
with  gratitude  and  gladness  in  her  tone,  "I 
believe  I  have  succeeded  fairly  well  in  har- 
monizing the  family,  and  though  it  has  been 
hard,  it  is  all  right." 

This,  indeed,  is  the  crowning  glory  of 
motherhood — to  be  able  to  quiet  and  steady 
and  ennoble  the  life  of  husband  and  bairns, 
through  her  wise,  loving  influence  constantly 
though  unobtrusively  exercised.  If  it  were 
f  128I 


THE    MOTHER'S    PART 

not  so  common  a  phenomenon  we  should 
marvel  more  than  we  do  at  the  wonderful 
patience  of  mothers.  When  a  girl  goes  to  a 
college  settlement  for  a  year  or  two  to  take 
care  of  other  folks'  children  we  clap  our 
hands  and  say,  "What  self-denial,  what  de- 
votion!" But  I  should  like  to  know  if  it  is 
any  more  noble  to  fetch  and  carry  for  other 
people's  children  for  a  year  or  two  than  it  is 
for  one's  own  for  a  long  lifetime. 

Of  course  the  mother  gets  something  out 
of  it.  She  ought  to.  Besides  the  love  her 
husband  and  children  bear  her,  she  grows  in- 
tellectually and  spiritually.  She  keeps  pace 
with  the  children  In  their  studies.  She  learns 
lessons  in  self-control  that  only  a  mother  can 
learn.  She'  rounds  out  into  a  beautiful  and 
symmetrical  womanhood,  and  though  she 
may  not  be  as  accomplished  as  her  maiden 
sister  in  music  and  art,  she  is  not  one  whit 
behind  her  in  the  essentials  of  a  genuine 
education. 

Let  us  value  our  mothers,  then,  while  we 
have  them.  James  A.  Garfield  never  did  a 
nobler  thing  than  when,  after  he  had  taken 
the  oath  to  be  loyal  to  the  duties  involved 
in  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States,  he 
turned  and  kissed  his  venerable  mother. 
[129] 


REAL    RELIGION 


Our  mothers  are  our  good  angels.  Let  us 
never  make  them  our  slaves.  Let  us  think 
of  them  in  the  midst  of  our  good  times. 
Let  us  plan  for  their  pleasure  and  comfort. 
And  let  us  begin  at  once  so  to  do. 


[130] 


ALL  HAIL  TO  THE  BREADWINNER 

THE  other  day  a  little  bevy  of  people 
entered  a  railway  restaurant  and  took 
possession  of  a  table.  There  were  four  chil- 
dren to  begin  with,  all  of  school  age,  besides 
a  toddling  youngster.  There  was  a  youngish- 
appearing  woman  who  seemed  to  be  acting 
in  the  capacity  of  a  mother's  helper  and  a 
woman,  with  a  good  many  wrinkles  in  her 
face,  who  was  plainly  the  mother  of  the  little 
tribe.  Last  of  all  came  the  father,  well 
loaded  down  with  bundles  and  of  a  serious 
not  to  say  Solemn  demeanor.  He  took  his 
seat  at  the  head  of  the  table  and  told  the 
waiter  to  bring  four  orders  of  chops  and 
potatoes  with  a  "side"  of  cold  tongue. 
The  family  was  evidently  on  its  way  to  a 
summer  resort  and  good  cheer  was  abun- 
dant and  expectation  ran  high.  A  happy, 
healthy,  harmonious  family  it  seemed  to  be, 
both  in  quality  and  in  quantity,  the  kind 
of  family  that  Theodore  Roosevelt  would 
approve. 

At  a  little  side  table  in  the  same  restau- 

[131] 


REAL    RELIGION 


rant  sat  a  gentleman  and  lady  watching  the 
pretty  scene.  "How  jolly  they  all  seem," 
said  the  gentleman.  To  which  his  com- 
panion replied,  "All  but  the  father.  Do 
you  notice  how  grave  he  is.^  And  I  don't 
wonder.  Think  of  providing  bread  three 
times  a  day  for  those  seven  hungry  people, 
to  say  nothing  about  chops.  I  declare,  I 
sometimes  marvel  at  the  courage  and  en- 
durance of  the  father  of  a  family.  Perhaps 
his  daily  effort  with  hands  or  brain  is  the 
only  thing  that  keeps  off  starvation  from 
those  children.  And  there  must  be  millions 
like  him  who  have  the  sole  responsibility  for 
other  lives." 

Undoubtedly  there  are.  Not  only  do 
countless  fathers  win  the  bread  for  wives 
and  children,  but  brothers  do  it  for  sisters 
and  sons  for  mothers.  It  has  always  been 
so  since  civilization  began.  One  half  the 
world  carries  the  other  half  on  its  back. 
Socialistic  theories  break  down  at  this  point. 
No  reconstruction  of  society  can  ever  relieve 
the  true  man  of  the  duty  or  deprive  him  of 
the  joy  of  winning  the  daily  bread  of  those 
dearest  to  him.  This  ambition  steadies  and 
inspires  him  as  he  toils  all  day  long  at  the 
counter  or  the  loom  or  the  anvil  or  the 
[132] 


HAIL    THE     BREADWINNER 

bench.  Had  he  no  such  motive  work  might 
become  unendurable. 

But  do  those  for  whom  he  works  always 
appreciate  what  a  load  rests  upon  "father's'' 
shoulders.?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  some- 
times his  face  gets  tense  and  the  lines  in 
it  deepen?  These  are  days  of  tremendous 
strain  and  competition  in  the  industrial 
world.  Sometimes  when  a  man  kisses  his 
wife  good-bye  in  the  morning  he  hardly 
knows  what  will  be  his  fortunes  or  misfor- 
tunes before  he  greets  her  again.  Tempta- 
tions, too,  confront  the  business  man  today 
from  dawn  till  sunset.  He  is  in  constant 
danger  of  becoming  mean  or  sordid  or  tricky 
or  false.  He  needs,  therefore,  the  apprecia- 
tion and  help  of  those  for  whose  sake  alone 
he  ventures  into  the  difficult  and  perilous 
places. 

So,  then,  honor  and  guard  the  breadwinner. 
When  you  get  your  check  at  the  regular  time, 
college  boy  or  college  girl,  don't  take  it  as  a 
matter  of  course,  but  write  a  line  of  gratitude 
to  "dear  old  dad."  And,  you  the  wife  of  his 
bosom  and  the  other  bairns  still  in  the  home 
nest,  never  let  the  one  who  wins  for  you  your 
daily  bread  go  hungry  himself  for  lack  of  love 
and  consideration. 

[133] 


REAL    RELIGION 


Happy  breadwinner,  gifted  with  the  ability 
to  provide  for  the  material  wants  of  others! 
May  you  win  their  tender  love  and  for  your- 
self that  pearl  of  great  price,  a  good  name 
and  a  noble  character. 


[134] 


"FOND   OF   HIS    FOLKS" 

"TTE'S  fond  of  his  folks,"  said  a  man  to 
X  A  me  recently  concerning  a  third  person 
whom  I  have  never  met.  This  was  one  of 
several  comments  passed.  What  the  others 
were  I  have  forgotten.  The  thing  that  sticks 
in  my  mind  is  the  fact  that  this  particular 
person  likes  his  own  people.  That  single 
element  in  his  make-up  predisposes  me  in  his 
favor.  When  I  meet  him  I  shall  expect  to 
find  a  certain  kind  of  man.  He  may  be  de- 
fective in  other  particulars,  open  to  criticism 
because  of  this  or  that  peculiarity,  but  he 
cannot  be  wholly  bad  and  my  heart  warms 
up  to  him  in  advance  because  he  is  said  to 
possess  that  quality  of  loyalty  to  his  friends 
and  his  family. 

Yet  when  characterizing  a  man,  why  should 
you  mention  this  trait  as  if  it  were  excep- 
tional, as  if  only  now  and  then  a  man  or 
woman  were  found  of  whom  it  is  true.^  Pray 
of  whom  should  we  be  fond,  if  not  of  our 
own  kith  and  kin.^*  Who  has  done  more  for 
us  than  they.^  Who  has  borne  with  us  more 
patiently  in  season  and  out  of  season,  when 

[135] 


REAL    RELIGION 


we  were  worthy  of  their  affection  and  when 
we  were  far  from  worthy  of  it?  Has  Tom, 
Dick,  or  Harry,  has  your  chance  acquaint- 
ance on  the  train  or  the  steamer,  has  the 
man  in  the  next  block  done  more  for  you, 
year  after  year,  than  your  father,  your  mother, 
your  sister,  your  brother?  And,  on  the  whole, 
are  there  any  nicer  people  to  live  with  or  to 
be  identified  with  than  just  our  own  dear 
people  ? 

Families  differ  in  their  possession  and  exhi- 
bition of  this  mutual  regard.  Even  within 
the  same  family  circle  now  and  then  you  find, 
if  not  a  black  sheep,  at  least  an  *^off  horse" 
who  does  not  pull  with  the  team,  who  prefers 
to  flock  by  himself.  But  is  there  anything 
finer  in  human  life  than  a  united,  harmoni- 
ous family,  all  of  whose  members  are  enthu- 
siastic over  one  another,  not  blind  to  one 
another's  faults,  but  quietly  proud  of  the 
family  history  and  traditions,  standing  by 
one  another  through  thick  and  thin,  never 
ashamed  to  confess  their  lineage,  doing  all 
in  their  power  to  strengthen  the  family  ties 
and  to  give  new  honor  and  dignity  to  the 
family  name? 

To  be  sure  this  warm  family  feeling  may 
degenerate   into   clannishness,    exclusiveness 

[136] 


"FOND    OF    HIS    FOLKS" 

and  feuds  with  other  families  leading  to  long- 
continued  guerrilla  warfare  like  that  which 
sometimes  characterizes  life  in  the  remote 
southern  mountains.  But,  as  a  rule,  the 
families  that  care  a  great  deal  for  them- 
selves are  the  families  that  care  most  about 
other  homes,  too,  and  that  contribute  most 
to  the  common  welfare. 

So  here's  to  the  bond  that  unites  us  in 
the  family  life.  Let  us  cherish  it  not  only 
when  Old  Home  Week  comes  and  Thanks- 
giving and  the  other  occasions  when  we  make 
formal  pilgrimages  to  the  places  where  we 
used  to  live,  but  all  through  the  year.  Let 
us  not  forget  those  little  courtesies  that 
strengthen  the  family  tie  and  sweeten  the 
home  relationships.  Let  us  consider  it  a 
high  compliment  to  have  it  said  of  us,  "He's 
fond  of  his  own  folks." 


137 


A  HOME-MAKER 

WHEN  she  passed  the  other  evening 
into  the  larger  life,  at  the  ripe  age 
of  seventy,  the  big  world  hardly  noted  her 
going,  but  the  little  world  of  which  she  was 
the  center  seemed  suddenly  smaller  and 
lonelier,  and  because  her  life-story  is  that  of 
a  great  multitude  of  God-fearing,  self-sacri- 
ficing women  whose  virtues  seldom  are  pub- 
licly recorded,  but  whose  quiet  efficiency 
helps  to  keep  the  universe  stable,  does  it 
seem  worth  while  to  tell  it. 

A  home-maker  she  was  more  than  any- 
thing else  from  the  hour  she  went  as  a  fair 
young  bride  to  a  New  England  city  even 
to  the  end  of  her  days.  The  outward  habi- 
tation was  transferred  from  time  to  time, 
but  in  the  numerous  migrations  East  and 
West  the  home  life  had  under  her  molding 
touch  a  quality  and  a  beauty  all  its  own. 
Amid  the  privations  of  the  frontier  the  light 
from  her  lamp  of  faith  and  love  shone  as 
brightly  as  when  she  pitched  her  tent  amid 
the  refinements  of  an  older  civilization. 

She  had  her  full  share  of  human  vicissi- 

[138] 


A    HOME-MAKER 


tudes,  but  you  knew  that  whenever  or 
wherever  you  rang  her  door-bell  she  would 
greet  you  with  a  smile  and  a  warm  hand- 
clasp. More  than  once  she  quaffed  the 
deepest  cup  of  sorrow  which  a  mother  can 
put  to  her  lips,  but  from  the  heart  she  could 
say  of  the  baby  boys  who  had  passed  from 
her  sight: 

"Mine  in  God's  gardens  run  to  and  fro, 
And  that  is  best." 

As  the  children  who  remained  grew  to 
manhood  and  womanhood  and  as  new  little 
homes  began  to  be  made  not  far  away  and 
as  birdlings  came  to  those  new  nests  her 
heart  expanded,  too,  and  the  home-making 
instinct  found  fresh  fields  for  exercise.  The 
brides  came  back  to  her  for  counsel  with 
reference  to  their  maids  and  their  menus 
and  the  bridegrooms  found  in  her  a  ready 
though  never  an  intermeddling  confidant.  As 
Thanksgiving  and  Christmas  recurred,  chil- 
dren and  grandchildren,  aunts  and  cousins 
gravitated  naturally  to  the  familiar  hearth- 
stone where  her  serene  and  gracious  pres- 
ence dominated  and  directed  every  joyous 
reunion. 

But  the  outgo  of  her  sympathies  was  not 
limited  to  the  family  circle.     She  served  her 

[139] 


REAL    RELIGION 


own  home  all  the  better  because  she  minis- 
tered directly  or  indirectly  to  many  another 
home  in  the  community.  Her  church  was 
not  only  a  place  where  she  worshiped  her 
God  and  found  nourishment  for  her  best 
life,  but  it  opened  to  her  a  door  of  oppor- 
tunity, and  through  organizations  like  the 
King's  Daughters  she  developed  the  latent 
powers  of  others,  fostered  their  charitable 
impulses,  and  set  in  motion  definite  agencies 
which  are  still  multiplying  and  perpetuating 
her  influence. 

A  modest  home  was  hers,  with  comfort 
enough,  but  with  few  tokens  of  affluence. 
She  knew  how  to  make  a  little  go  a  long 
way.  She  respected  learning  and  letters 
and  had  a  keen  desire  to  keep  pace  with 
the  best  thoughts  of  the  world.  She  cov- 
eted for  her  children  the  opportunities  of 
college  and  of  travel.  She  imposed  no 
fetters  upon  their  own  broadening  ideas, 
though  they  knew  what  "Mother's  Bible" 
meant  to  her  and  at  what  fountains  she 
daily  fed  her  own  strength.  There  was, 
too,  an  ample  place  in  that  home  for  the 
element  of  fun.  She  had  herself  the  merry 
spirit  that  doeth  good  like  medicine.  Only 
that  and  the  grace  of  God  would  have 
[140] 


A    HOME-MAKER 


enabled  her  to  bear  the  hardships  and  dis- 
appointments that  were  her  portion. 

She  was  not  a  perfect  woman  and  as  I 
have  already  intimated  she  was  not  an  ex- 
ceptional woman.  Had  she  been  the  latter, 
you  would  have  read  about  her  in  The 
Social  Settlement  Tidings  or  in  The  Club 
Woman^s  Weekly  or  in  the  Daily  Tell-It- 
All.  She  was  just  a  plain,  ordinary  home- 
maker —  nothing  more,  nothing  less.  She 
knew  how  to  make  a  home  to  perfection. 
That  was  a  large  enough  sphere  for  her. 
It  offered  as  big  a  fulcrum  as  she  wanted 
for  helping  to  lift  the  world.  Nor  was  her 
life  all  outgo.  Great  as  is  her  reward  to- 
day in  the  heavenly  existence,  she  received 
while  here  no  meager  returns  for  what  she 
gave.  The  experiences  of  wifehood  and 
motherhood,  a  half  century  of  home  build- 
ing, an  abounding  good-will  to  others  reach- 
ing from  her  nearest  neighbors  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth  —  all  these  yielded  their  rich 
fruitage  in  character.  And  what  career  is 
there  that  offers  to  consecrated  womanhood 
today  larger  opportunities  and  rewards  than 
the  good,  old-fashioned  vocation  of  wife, 
mother,  and  home-maker  .f* 


1 141] 


WHAT  SHALL  THE  MIDDLE-AGED 

MAN   DO? 

THAT  brilliant  Scotch  writer,  Ian  Mac- 
laren,  the  author  of  the  famous 
Bonnie  Brier  Bush  stories,  wrote,  a  few 
years  ago,  an  article  with  the  striking  cap- 
tion, "Shall  We  Shoot  the  Old  Minister?" 
In  it  he  set  forth  the  pitiable  plight  of 
many  preachers  who  find  themselves  not 
wanted  by  churches  after  they  have  passed 
the  dead-line  of  fifty.  He  offered  the  humor- 
ous suggestion  that  the  only  thing  to  do  for 
these  worn-out  servants  of  the  Lord  is  to  take 
them  out  and  shoot  them. 

But  the  distress  today  is  hardly  less  among 
a  large  number  of  persons  in  middle  life  than 
it  is  with  those  whose  heads  are  white  with 
the  snows  of  many  winters.  Moreover,  it 
is  not  the  ministerial  class  only  which  suffers, 
but  in  other  professions,  and  notably  in  busi- 
ness, the  young,  hustling,  well-equipped  fel- 
lows fresh  from  colleges  and  the  schools  of 
technology  are  shouldering  the  older  genera- 
tion to  the  rear.  "There  is  not  much  chance 
in  business  today  for  a  man  who  has  passed 
[142] 


MIDDLE-AGED    MAN    DO? 

forty,"  said  one  not  long  ago,  who  had  been 
thrown  out  of  a  remunerative  place  by  a 
consolidation  of  banks  and  who  had  knocked 
in  vain  at  the  door  of  other  possible  oppor- 
tunities. As  business  becomes  more  highly 
organized  and  power  is  concentrated  in  the 
hands  of  a  few,  there  is  less  chance  for  a 
man  to  wedge  his  way  in  after  the  dew  of 
youth  has  gone,  unless  he  has  a  pull  with 
the  higher  powers  or  possesses  special  apti- 
tudes. 

And  even  to  men  who  are  not  themselves 
the  victims  of  sudden  reverses,  the  coming 
of  the  middle-age  period  brings  with  it 
often  a  sense  of  depression  and  foreboding. 
They  realize  how  swiftly  time  flies  and  how 
few  years  remain  in  which  their  powers 
will  be  adequate  to  the  difficult  task  of 
breadwinning.  They  see  the  prizes  of  life 
snapped  up  by  men  ten  or  fifteen  years 
their  juniors  and  they  are  filled  with  appre- 
hension with  regard  to  what  the  morrow 
may  bring  forth. 

Now  there  are  three  sharp,  clear  messages 
to  speak  to  the  army  of  timid  or  discouraged 
men  in  middle  life.  The  first  is,  don't  lose 
your  grip.  The  minute  that  goes,  you  are 
on  the  downward  slope.     Hold  on  to  your- 

[143] 


REAL    RELIGION 


self  at  every  hazard,  to  your  courage,  your 
enthusiasm,  your  buoyancy  of  spirit.  Resolve 
that,  come  what  may,  hardships,  reverses,  dis- 
appointments, your  spirit  shall  not  be  crushed 
or  embittered. 

Next,  do  not  slacken  your  efforts.  Here  is 
where  so  many  make  a  fatal  mistake.  They 
reason  that  because  they  are  somewhat  handi- 
capped by  their  age  they  will  never  amount 
to  much  and  so  they  grow  careless  and  inert. 
They  do  not  exhaust  every  opportunity  for 
personal  culture.  They  do  not  make  every 
effort  possible  to  better  their  condition.  Call 
to  mind  men  who  have  gone  on  into  middle 
life  and  advancing  years,  pushing  harder  all 
the  time,  never  relaxing  in  a  single  particu- 
lar. For  that  reason  they  are  not  today 
stranded  and  disheartened. 

In  the  third  place,  and  most  important  of 
all,  hold  on  to  faith.  "Never  despair,"  said 
Phillips  Brooks,  "of  a  world  over  which  God 
reigns."  Trust  the  future  instead  of  fearing 
it.  Believe  that  it  holds  good  for  you  and 
yours.  Things  are  always  happening.  Com- 
binations of  circumstances  are  always  tak- 
ing place  that  may  issue  favorably  for  you. 
Above  all,  believe  that  every  human  life  is 
the  plan  of  the  Divine  Mind  and  that  there 

[144] 


MIDDLE-AGED    MAN    DO? 

is  always  help  for  the  life  that  is  ready  to  be 
helped. 

Nothing  is  more  inspiring  than  to  see  the 
way  in  which  some  men  in  middle  life  do 
wake  up  and  register  a  growth  and  a  capacity 
for  achieving  things  which  they  did  not  seem 
to  exhibit  even  when  young  men.  All  about 
us  are  growing,  energetic,  hopeful,  aspiring 
men  and  women  in  middle  life.  They  are 
going  to  do  better  work  as  the  years  go  by. 
The  world  will  have  a  place  for  them.  They 
will  be  wanted.  You  may  be  among  that 
number. 


[I4S] 


THIS  NEXT  WEEK'S  FRIENDLINESS 

I  LIKE  the  grand  old  Saxon  word  friendli- 
ness. It  carries  with  it  the  savor  of  all 
things  sweet  and  gracious.  It  stands  for  that 
delicate  touch  of  life  upon  life  whereby  the 
sorrow  and  woe  of  the  world  are  assuaged 
and  men  are  lifted  into  nobleness.  I  know 
two  young  children  whose  one  criterion  of 
strangers,  be  they  of  the  human  or  of  the 
brute  creation,  is,  "Are  they  friendly?" 
That  is  the  first  thing  they  want  to  find  out 
about  a  new  acquaintance  and  other  con- 
siderations take  a  subordinate  place. 

How  many  persons  lack  just  this  crowning 
virtue!  They  are  amiable  and  respectable. 
They  won't  lie  or  steal.  But  you  would 
never  think  of  going  to  them  with  your 
burden,  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  them 
interesting  themselves  in  other  persons  when 
such  interest  involves  any  sacrifice  of  time  or 
ease.  And  we  know  other  persons  like  the 
late  Prof.  Henry  Drummond,  for  instance, 
whose  very  presence  radiates  friendliness. 
It  distils  from  the  tips  of  their  fingers,  it 
sounds  in  the  tones  of  their  voices;  it  seems 

(146] 


FRIENDLINESS 


to  be  the  atmosphere  by  which  they  are 
constantly  surrounded. 

The  trouble  with  non-friendly  people  is 
not  antipathy  to  their  kind,  but  they  have 
walled  themselves  away  from  their  fellow 
men,  and  in  doing  so  they  have  not  only 
stopped  the  flow  of  good-will  from  outsiders 
into  their  own  lives,  but  they  have  dammed 
the  stream  of  kindness  that  might  otherwise 
issue  from  them  to  the  refreshment  of  others. 
You  cannot  get  within  a  thousand  miles  of 
the  inmost  lives  of  these  persons.  Even 
with  a  smiling  exterior  they  constantly  dis- 
appoint you  and  frequently  irritate  you,  for 
you  know  if  you  could  only  once  get  at  them 
their  virtup  would  do  you  good.  But  the 
citadel  of  their  hearts  can  only  be  carried  by 
a  long  and  vigorous  assault.  You  must  cross 
the  drawbridge  and  batter  down  a  number 
of  heavy  doors  before  you  can  really  get  at 
them. 

But  friendliness  is  outgoing  and  outreach- 
ing.  It  does  not  dwell  behind  barred  gates. 
Neither  is  it  officious  or  inquisitive.  It  is 
simply  the  effluence  of  a  spirit  sensitive  to 
the  needs  of  men,  eager  to  give  help  and  sym- 
pathy. A  minister's  wife  was  commended  to 
me  the  other  day  as  possessing  in  a  rare  de- 

[147] 


REAL    RELIGION 


gree  this  quality.  ^^She  is  not  such  a  master 
hand  at  prayer-meetings,"  said  my  inform- 
ant, "but  she  does  carry  on  her  heart  the 
Christian  welfare  of  every  person  in  the 
parish." 

What  a  change  it  would  make  in  this  big, 
fevered  world  if  friendliness  were  the  char- 
acteristic mark  of  persons  as  they  met  with 
and  dealt  with  one  another!  The  opposite 
attitude  is  painfully  prevalent.  We  cannot 
remedy  the  situation  all  at  once,  but  we  can, 
beginning  where  we  are,  strive  to  be  friendly, 
the  mistress  with  her  cook,  the  master  with 
his  coachman,  the  teacher  with  his  pupil,  the 
neighbor  with  his  neighbor,  the  parent  with 
his  child  and  the  child  with  his  parent,  the 
clerk  with  his  employer  and  the  employer 
with  his  clerk. 

Only  we  must  plan  for  it.  Why  not  block 
out  the  program  of  the  coming  week  with  a 
view  to  friendliness.'*  You  can  show  it  in 
places  where  you  have  not  hitherto  conspicu- 
ously displayed  it.  It  may  hurt  your  pride 
to  do  so  and  it  may  call  for  some  heroic 
effort.  But  you  will  be  rewarded  over  and 
over  again,  for  it  has  been  well  said  by  a 
sage  of  former  time,  "A  man  to  have  friends 
must  show  himself  friendly." 

[1481 


WHEN  IS  A  MAN  OLD? 

WHEN  is  a  man  old?  This  seems  to 
be  one  of  the  burning  questions  of 
the  day.  The  facetious  Mrs.  Partington  an- 
swered it  some  time  ago,  by  remarking  that 
she  did  not  consider  any  one  old  until  he 
became  an  octagon  or  a  centurion;  or,  per- 
chance, might  have  outlived  the  use  of  his 
factories  and  become  idiomatic.  The  old 
lady  got  her  words  badly  mixed,  as  she  was 
in  the  habit  of  doing;  but  there  was  at  least 
a  glimmer  of  good  sense  in  what  she  said. 
If  it  is  tru?.  that 

"We  live  in  deeds,  not  years:  in  thoughts,  not  breaths; 
In  feelings,  not  in  figures  on  a  dial," 

we  have  no  business  to  affix  the  epithet  "old" 
to  some  men  because  they  are  forty,  or  sixty, 
or  even  eighty. 

Here  comes  a  youth  down  the  street,  hardly 
out  of  his  teens.  He  is  faultlessly  dressed, 
has  the  entree  of  the  best  clubs  and  social 
circles,  has  been  abroad  several  times.  You 
would  judge  from  a  casual  glance  at  him  that 
he  was  in  the  heyday  of  his  youth.     But  wait 

[149] 


REAL    RELIGION 


until  you  know  him  better.  You  will  find 
that  the  adjective  blase  fits  him  exactly. 
He  has  been  surfeited  with  the  sweets  of 
life;  he  has  dipped  into  everything  that  is 
going.  Alas,  he  has  altogether  too  much 
knowledge  of  the  seamy  side  of  life;  he  has 
no  ambition  and  few  expectations. 

Here  comes  another  man  down  the  street. 
His  head  is  white  with  the  snows  of  many 
winters,  but  his  form  is  erect;  his  face  is 
beaming  with  kindness  and  good-will;  his 
heart  is  young.  The  world  opens  itself 
freshly  to  him  with  each  new  dawn.  He  has 
the  sense  of  wonder  and  anticipation  which 
we  associate  with  little  children.  He  has 
had  his  share  of  struggle,  disappointment, 
and  sorrow,  but  he  has  kept  his  faith  in 
God  and  his  fellows.  Now,  why  should 
you  call  him  old  and  the  victim  of  ennui 
young.''  Or,  if  you  would  thus  characterize 
either,  why  not  specify  exactly  what  you 
mean  by  the  use  of  terms  which,  if  not  clearly 
defined,  carry  with  them  an  undue  measure 
either  of  commendation  or  opprobrium. 

What  shall  we  do  with  the  old  men.^     A 

great  physician   rises   up  and   declares   that 

they  ought   to   be   retired   from   responsible 

positions.     His  dictum  starts  the  pen  of  the 

[ISO] 


WHEN    IS    A    MAN    OLD? 

funny  paragraphers  the  country  over,  and  all 
sorts  of  methods  of  disposing  of  septuagena- 
rians are  proposed,  ranging  from  chloroform- 
ing to  shooting  in  cold  blood.  But  when  we 
come  right  down  to  the  serious  point  of  issue, 
we  must  admit  that  the  increasing  valuation 
placed  upon  young  men  in  business  and  pro- 
fessional life  renders  old  age  a  precarious 
season  for  many  of  our  fellow  men.  New 
Zealand  has  met  the  emergency  by  its  sys- 
tem of  old-age  pensions. 

Personally,  we  may  have  little  to  do  with 
solving  this  question  on  its  economic  side, 
but  we  ought  to  maintain  the  true  perspec- 
tive. Old  age  need  not  necessarily  be  a  drug 
in  the  market.  Think  of  the  stored-up  wis- 
dom and  experience  in  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  old  men  whom  you  know.  Young  men 
must  fight  the  battles  and  do  the  hard  work 
of  the  world;  but  their  energy  and  initiative 
need  to  be  balanced  by  the  insight,  judg- 
ment, and  conservatism  of  older  men.  The 
world  would  swing  too  far  and  too  rapidly 
toward  radicalism  were  it  not  for  men  who 
have  been  mellowed,  ripened,  and  broadened 
by  many  years  of  action. 

But  what  can  the  old  man  do  with  him- 
self.^    Well,    he    cannot   begin    all    at   once 

[iSi] 


REAL    RELIGION 


when  he  is  sixty  or  seventy  and  say,  "I 
will  have  a  happy  and  beautiful  old  age." 
That  desirable  status  has  to  be  planned  for 
in  advance.  If  the  advice,  "In  time  of 
peace  prepare  for  war,"  be  worth  anything, 
far  more  valuable  is  the  counsel,  "In  time  of 
youth  prepare  for  age."  Lay  up  the  dollars 
if  you  can,  so  that  you  will  not  be  dependent 
upon  others;  but  lay  up  even  more  sedulously 
those  inward  resources  which  will  alone 
make  life  bearable  at  that  season  and  make 
your  company  agreeable  to  others.  You 
don't  wish  to  be  in  the  class  of  people  who 
are  not  wanted  by  and  by.  Look  well  then 
to  your  inward  resources.  See  that  you 
keep  your  mental  elasticity,  your  spiritual 
susceptibilities.  Add  day  by  day  to  your 
fund  of  courage  and  good  cheer.  Acquire 
some  reserves  of  faith  and  hope  and  love, 
on  which  you  can  draw  when  "the  grass- 
hopper becomes  a  burden." 

In  other  words,  as  the  body  ages,  let 
the  spirit  grow  young  and  strong.  There 
are  certain  preventives  against  the  aging 
of  the  spirit.  A  man  is  as  old  as  he  feels 
himself  to  be  in  his  inmost  heart,  and  not 
a  day  older.  And  one  of  the  best  safeguards 
against  the  aging  of  the  soul  is  to  wrap  it 

[IS2] 


WHEN    IS    A    MAN    OLD? 

round  with  a  sense  of  immortality;  the  sense 
that  Hfe  here  merges  sooner  or  later  into 
a  life  ampler  and  grander  beyond  the  grave. 
The  statistical  difference  between  youth 
and  age  fades  away  when  we  think  of  the 
years  of  eternity  in  comparison  with  which 
even  the  longest  earthly  life  is  like  the  swift 
passing  of  a  summer's  day. 


153 


WHY   GO  TO   CHURCH? 

MOST  of  the  arguments  in  behalf  of 
churchgoing  begin  at  the  wrong  end 
and  pass  over  the  minds  and  consciences  of 
the  persons  addressed  as  water  slips  from  a 
duck's  back.  Of  course,  there  is  some  force 
in  these  minor  considerations  advanced;  but 
tell  a  man  that  he  ought  to  go  for  the  sake 
of  his  example,  and  likely  as  not  he  will 
respond:  "I  am  just  as  good  already  as 
many  people  who  go  to  church,  and  I  don't 
have  to  go  to  church  in  order  to  set  a  good 
example.  Besides,  I  am  not  particularly 
anxious  to  pose  as  an  example."  Or,  plead 
with  a  man  to  go  in  order  to  help  main- 
tain an  important  institution,  and  you  are 
apt  to  have  this  rejoinder:  "Oh,  yes!  I  be- 
lieve churches  are  good  things  in  their  way, 
and  that  society  can't  get  along  without  them, 
but  I  am  already  supporting  the  church 
financially.  My  wife  goes  and  my  children 
attend  the  Sunday-school,  and  I  think  I  am 
doing  my  fair  share  in  this  way." 

To   such   a   man   who   parries    subsidiary 
arguments,   and   who   in   four  cases   out  of 

[IS4] 


WHY    GO    TO    CHURCH? 

five  is  a  self-centered  man,  the  appeal  must 
be  based  on  what  seem  like  purely  selfish 
grounds.  Go  for  your  own  sake,  brother. 
In  the  first  place,  go  in  order  to  have  a 
season  of  quiet  where  you  will  not  have  to 
carry  on  conversation  or  to  attend  to  busi- 
ness or  household  details  or  skim  through 
newspapers.  Go  in  order  to  give  your  mind 
a  rest  from  such  concerns  as  engross  it  during 
the  week.  I  know  wearied  mothers  and 
overworked  business  and  professional  men 
who  look  forward  to  Sunday  morning  in 
the  sanctuary  as  a  period  of  profitable  mental 
quiet. 

Go  to  worship  your  Creator  and  the  Infi- 
nite Father  of  all  mankind.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  was  not  a  dreamy  pietist  or  a  pro- 
fessional advocate  of  ecclesiasticism,  but  he 
said  once,  "I  have  in  my  heart  a  little  plant 
called  reverence.  I  go  to  church  to  have  it 
watered."  How  long  is  it  since  you  provided 
the  proper  nourishment  for  your  immortal 
nature;  since  you  lifted  your  aspiration 
heavenward?  The  spiritual  spark  within 
you  has  a  hard  struggle  to  live  when  you 
overlay  and  almost  smother  it  with  so  many 
material  concerns.  The  hour  in  church  once 
a  week  offers   at  least  one  chance   for  the 

[iSS] 


REAL    RELIGION 


spiritual  in  you  to  assert  itself,  to  move 
outward  in  reverence,  in  adoration  toward 
that  Power  which  broods  over  all  our  lives. 

Go  to  church  to  get  food  for  mind  and 
soul.  A  famous  Massachusetts  lawyer  once 
said  that  it  was  a  mighty  poor  sermon  that 
didn't  hit  him  somewhere.  Surely  it  is 
possible  to  find  amid  the  diversity  of  pulpit 
administrations  which  a  modern  city  offers 
some  prophet  or  teacher  who  can  interpret 
helpfully  to  you  the  problems  of  life  from 
the  spiritual  standpoint;  who  can  reveal 
the  meaning  of  discipline;  who  can  set  you 
to  thinking  on  the  great  subjects  of  the 
human  soul  and  its  relation  to  its  Maker 
and  its  fellows.  And  even  if  by  traveling 
about  you  do  not  find  the  preacher  who 
exactly  suits  you,  there  can  hardly  fail 
to  be  crumbs  of  instruction  and  inspiration 
that  will  fall  into  your  lap  if  you  will  but 
listen  teachably  and  regularly. 

You  really  can't  aff'ord  to  stay  away 
from  church  on  your  own  account.  A 
member  of  the  supreme  bench  in  one  of  our 
great  states  said  in  my  hearing  the  other 
day  that  he  had  passed  through  a  season  in 
earlier  years  when  he  pulled  away  from  the 
Church.     He  thought  he  could  get  as  much 

[156] 


WHY  GO    TO    CHURCH? 

good  by  reading  books  or  by  wandering 
on  pleasant  days  through  the  fields.  But 
as  he  continued  under  this  delusion,  he  said 
he  became  conscious  of  a  certain  moral 
deterioration,  and  so  because  he  feared  that 
his  character  would  degenerate,  he  resumed 
again  the  practise  of  regular  churchgoing, 
and  has  adhered  to  it  faithfully  ever  since. 
It  isn't  a  question  of  whether  you  like 
the  building  or  the  people  who  run  the  church, 
whether  you  agree  in  all  the  particulars  with 
its  theology  or  its  ecclesiastical  forms.  It  is 
a  question  of  your  own  growth  in  things  true, 
beautiful,  and  of  good  report.  Men  put 
forward  a  multitude  of  reasons  for  not 
going  to  ,  church.  I  have  read  carefully 
many  explanations  of  their  attitude  on  the 
part  of  non-churchgoers,  but  they  all  seem  to 
me  to  be  excuses  and  not  reasons.  Is  there 
any  real  valid  reason,  my  brother,  aside 
from  ill  health  or  infirmity,  why  you  do  not 
go  to  church  f    If  so,  write  and  tell  me. 


[IS7] 


THE    QUESTION    WHY 

IN  one  of  his  sweetest  poems,  James  Russell 
Lowell  describes  his  pitiable  loneliness 
when  a  darling  child  was  taken  from  him. 
One  of  the  verses  in  which  he  voices  his 
dissatisfaction  with  the  ordinary  explanation 
of  trouble  is  this: 

"Your  logic,  my  friend,  is  perfect, 
Your  moral  most  drearily  true; 
But,  since  the  earth  clashed  on  her  coffin, 
I  keep  hearing  that,  and  not  you." 

One  has  some  such  feeling  as  this  when 
he  reads  many  of  the  sermons  and  articles 
that  have  sought  to  interpret  the  meaning 
of  any  terrible  catastrophe.  Most  of  them 
leave  you  still  asking  why,  why,  why.'* 

In  a  group  of  distinguished  scholars  a 
conversation  once  turned  upon  this  question 
of  mystery  connected  with  the  divine  ruler- 
ship  of  the  world.  One  man  after  another 
sought  to  contribute  what  light  he  could, 
until  it  became  the  turn  of  the  oldest  and 
most  revered  among  them,  the  president 
of  a  leading  theological  seminary,  to  speak. 
All    he    said    was,    "Gentlemen,    we    might 

[158] 


THE    QUESTION    WHY 

as  well  confess  that  God  does  a  great  many 
things  that  man  could  not  conscientiously 
do."  He  meant  that  if  a  man  were  in 
charge  of  the  universe,  and  had  all  power 
committed  to  him,  he  would  not  permit 
the  things  to  happen  that  are  allowed  to 
happen  every  day. 

For  mystery  is  an  every-day  affair.  If 
we  can  endure  and  rise  above  the  mysterious 
dispensations  that  touch  our  own  lives  from 
time  to  time,  we  can  probably  summon  up 
enough  philosophy  to  meet  the  great  public 
calamities  concerning  which  the  newspapers 
scatter  particulars  far  and  wide.  We  do 
not  put  the  question,  "Why,"  for  the  first 
time  when  we  read  of  devastating  conflagra- 
tions, of  engulfing  whirlwinds  and  merciless 
earthquakes.  We  put  the  question,  "Why," 
whenever  we  hear  of  a  fair,  innocent,  promis- 
ing child  taken  suddenly,  or  by  the  slow 
working  of  disease,  from  life;  or  whenever  a 
young  man  just  through  his  studies,  on  the 
verge  of  great  usefulness  in  the  world,  goes 
insane;  or  whenever  the  father  and  wage- 
earner  in  a  large  family  dependent  upon  him 
suffers  a  maiming  accident;  or  whenever 
sickness  or  death  strikes,  as  it  seems  to  love 
to  do,  a  shining  mark;  or  whenever  tragedy 

[IS9] 


REAL    RELIGION 


stalks  in  one  form  or  another  into  a  familiar 
and  beloved  circle  of  dear  ones.  We  are 
saying  why  nearly  all  the  time,  if  we  have 
any  degree  of  sensitiveness  to  the  sorrows, 
the  woe,  and  despair  of  our  fellow  men; 
and  if  we  can  give  an  answer  to  the  question 
in  one  case,  we  probably  can  in  all. 

But  the  fact  is,  there  is  no  answer  —  at 
least  none  that  entirely  resolves  the  mystery 
or  satisfies  both  the  demands  of  the  reason 
and  the  instincts  of  the  heart.  Better 
for  us  is  it  to  admit  that  we  are  in  a  world 
for  whose  behavior  we  are  not  expected 
to  give  a  totally  satisfactory  accounting. 
We  did  not  make  this  world  and  there  are 
limits  to  our  responsibility  for  it;  and  yet 
we  may  be  sure  of  at  least  three  things. 
First,  that  it  is,  on  the  whole,  a  good  world. 
Otherwise  the  number  of  suicides  would 
exceed  the  number  of  those  who  die  a  natural 
death.  The  way  in  which  men  cling  to 
life,  even  though  they  know  little  but  poverty 
and  trouble,  is  proof  that  the  great  majority 
of  mankind  regard  life  as  a  boon. 

Another  certainty  is  that  human  sympathy, 
the  best  thing  that  passes  between  man  and 
man,  would  never  exist  were  it  not  for  trouble 
and  sorrow. 

[i6o] 


THE    QUESTION    WHY 

One  more  thing  is  certain  —  trouble  works 
out  beneficent  results  in  the  field  of  character, 
provided  one  does  not  rebel  and  complain. 
The  world  is  educated  and  disciplined  by- 
world  tragedies.  The  individual  is  purified 
and  ennobled  by  bitter  experiences.  So 
long  as  the  most  perfect  Character  that  has 
ever  walked  this  earth  was  called  upon  to 
endure  the  tragedy  of  the  cross,  not  only  at 
the  end  of  his  life,  but  all  the  way  through, 
we  who  were  cast  in  a  lesser  mold,  who  own 
ourselves  far  from  perfection,  ought  not  to 
complain  when  the  knife  cuts  into  our  flesh 
or  the  scourge  is  laid  upon  our  backs. 

The  reason  can  give  no  answer  to  the 
question,  "Why,"  but  faith,  instead  of  be- 
ing discomfited  and  vanquished,  is  braced 
and  made  more  robust  by  every  encounter 
with  mystery,  for  faith  takes  into  account 
two  great  factors  —  God  and  the  future 
life.  And  because  it  rests  profoundly  on 
these  realities,  faith  sings  on,  even  though 
the  storm  may  roar  without. 


i6i] 


WHERE    DO    PEOPLE    GO   WHEN 
THEY  DIE? 

MAMMA,  where  do  people  go  when 
they  die?"  This  question,  which 
springs  to  the  lips  of  almost  every  child 
as  soon  as  it  begins  to  think  at  all,  is  still 
with  us  and  still  unanswered.  What  would 
not  that  merchant  prince  who  lost  the  other 
day  the  beloved  companion  of  many  years 
give  for  an  answer?  How  quickly  and  eagerly 
that  young  mother  who  has  just  laid  her 
baby  away  in  the  grave  would  fare  forth 
across  the  seas  to  distant  lands  if  she  there 
could  find  out  where  her  darling  is  today! 
But  no  sphinx  or  oracle  discloses  the  secret. 
And  I  am  not  so  foolish  as  to  think  I  can 
give  anything  like  a  definite  or  satisfying 
answer,  but  certain  beliefs,  or  if  you  prefer 
to  call  them  hopes,  are  crystallizing  into 
convictions  in  my  mind  and  they  bear  upon 
the  underlying  problem  and  illuminate  it  to 
some  extent. 

One  is  that  the  dead  are  somewhere. 
The  very  form  of  this  age-long  question 
implies  that.     One  asks  instinctively  about 

fl62l 


WHERE    DO    PEOPLE    GO? 

the  person  who  has  just  stopped  breathing, 
not  "Why  has  he  ceased  to  be?"  but  "Where 
has  he  gone?"  That  strong,  commanding 
spirit  who  only  recently  was  the  most 
vigorous  among  us  must  still  be  somewhere. 
In  the  early  days  of  this  country  when  people 
emigrated  from  New  England  to  the  distant 
West,  relying  solely  on  emigrant  wagons, 
their  friends  who  bade  them  good-bye  knew 
that  they  might  not  hear  from  the  travelers 
for  months,  perhaps  not  for  years,  but 
they  did  not  on  that  account  think  of  them 
thereafter  as  non-existent.  The  long  wait 
for  us  who  have  lost  friends  by  death,  the 
awful  silence  seems  sometimes  unbearable, 
but  the  greatest  wrong  we  can  do  ourselves 
or  them  is  to  think  of  them  as  anything 
but  living,  growing,  developing  souls  some- 
where in  God's  universe. 

And  they  are  doubtless  better  off.  The 
apostle  Paul  thought  so,  at  any  rate,  and  he 
seems  to  have  had  special  information  on 
the  matter.  When  we  consider  the  physical 
and  the  moral  risks  to  which  a  human  being 
is  subject  in  this  imperfect  world  from 
babyhood  to  old  age,  when  we  reflect  upon 
the  contagion  of  disease,  the  liabilities  to 
accident,  the  inherited  maladies,  the  pitfalls 

[163] 


REAL    RELIGION 


in  the  path  of  him  who  would  be  good, 
when  we  think  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man 
and  the  large  domains  of  life  where  cruelty, 
tyranny,  and  lust  still  hold  sway,  we  can  at 
least  hope  and  expect  that  the  "other  room" 
into  which  God  takes  his  children,  one  by 
one,  is  free  from  some  of  the  evils  that 
blight  this  earth  and  that  there  the  average 
soul  is  freer,  happier,  and  holier.  Certainly 
all  the  evolutionary  processes  and  tendencies 
at  work  in  this  present  world  look  as  if  they 
made  for  something  better  and  higher  here- 
after. Helen  Hunt  voiced  this  faith  in  the 
sweet  poem  beginning, 

"Mother,  I  see  you  with  your  nursery  light, 
Leading  your  babies  all  in  white, 

To  their  sweet  rest; 
Christ,  the  good  Shepherd,  carries  mine  to-night, 

And  that  is  best. 

But  how  about  rewards  and  punishments.^ 
How  about  the  sharp  divisions.^  Well,  there 
are  divisions  here  and  it  is  forever  true  that 
a  man  to  be  happy  in  heaven  must  have  a 
heavenly  mind.  There  is  solemn  truth  in 
the  reply  which  a  wise  man  made  to  the 
flippant  question,  "Where  does  all  the  sul- 
phur in  the  infernal  regions  come  from?" 
"Each  man,"    said   he,    "brings    his    own." 

[164] 


WHERE    DO    PEOPLE    GO? 

The  place  where  people  go  when  they  die 
is  determined  not  by  a  harsh,  powerful 
despot,  but  by  a  loving  personal  will  and 
the  degree  to  which  a  human  being  has 
brought  his  life  into  conformity  with  it. 


[i6s] 


THE    ONE-LEGGED    BOY'S 
THANKFULNESS 

THE  Sunday-school  teacher  thought  it 
would  be  a  capital  idea  on  the  Sun- 
day before  Thanksgiving  to  ask  his  class  of 
bright  boys  what  each  had  to  be  thankful 
for.  So  he  passed  around  paper  and  pencils 
and  in  due  time  the  replies  came  back. 
One  lad  was  thankful  that  he  had  made 
the  football  team,  another  for  his  good  home, 
a  third  for  his  new  bicycle,  but  the  answer 
that  touched  the  teacher  most  deeply  came 
from  the  one-legged  boy  in  the  corner  who 
wrote  simply,  "I  am  thankful  for  one  good 
leg." 

One  good  leg!  that  represented  what 
he  had  saved  out  of  the  accident.  It  was 
more  precious  to  him  than  his  two  legs 
had  been  prior  to  the  time  that  he  fell  under 
the  train.  For  with  the  one  leg  left  to  him 
he  had  been  able  by  sheer  pluck,  and  with 
the  aid  of  a  crutch,  to  get  about  among  his 
mates  somewhat  as  before,  to  go  to  school 
again,  to  have  a  little  share  in  the  sports,  to 
[166I 


THANKFULNESS 


earn  a  little  money.  Why,  that  one  leg 
stood  in  his  thought  for  everything  worth 
having!  It  symbolized  independence,  educa- 
tion, the  power  of  locomotion,  the  possibility 
of  attaining  noble  and  useful  manhood  by 
and  by.  No  wonder  that  he  grasped  his 
pencil  firmly  and  wrote  quickly,  "I  am 
thankful  for  one  good  leg." 

Who  are  the  happiest  people  on  Thanks- 
giving Day,  when  the  turkey  comes  steam- 
ing in?  Not  necessarily  those  who  have  the 
most  abundant  menus,  the  most  sumptuous 
homes.  The  happiest  people  will  be  those 
who  have  learned  the  real  worth  of  the 
things  which  they  possess.  And  sometimes 
we  have  to  be  deprived  of  half  of  our  bless- 
ings in  order  to  appreciate  the  half  that 
is  left.  When  satisfactions  and  delights 
pour  in  upon  us  in  a  golden  and  continuous 
stream  we  are  liable  to  accept  them  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  underrate  each  separate 
mercy,  to  forget  entirely  the  source  of  all 
prosperity  and  happiness.  A  wealthy  man- 
ufacturer was  telling  me  the  other  day 
how  he  had  lavished  gifts  and  advantages 
upon  his  two  daughters  from  their  childhood 
to  their  present  college  days.  "And  yet," 
he  went  on  to  say,  "mother  and  I  sometimes 

[167] 


REAL    RELIGION 


think  they  don't  care  half  so  much  for  a 
diamond  necklace  even,  as  she  and  I,  when 
we  were  young  and  poor,  cared  for  the  trinkets 
given  us." 

We  almost  need  to  lose  a  leg,  some  of 
us,  to  get  our  eyes  open  to  what  it  means 
to  have  a  share  in  the  normal,  the  average 
boons  granted  to  the  human  family.  And 
not  every  one  who  loses  a  leg  actually  or 
metaphorically  takes  the  deprivation  as 
philosophically  and  cheerfully  as  this  boy 
did.  As  families  gather  all  over  the  land 
for  the  annual  festival  of  Thanksgiving,  in 
many  a  home  there  will  be  a  vacant  chair 
or  some  other  token  of  loss.  But  is  it  the 
hour  for  mourning  over  what  was  and  is  no 
more,  or  is  it  a  manlier  thing  to  look  about 
and  take  account  over  what  is  left.^  How 
rich  your  life  still  is  in  friends  and  kindred, 
in  external  comfort  and  ease,  in  inward 
capacities  and  hopes,  in  opportunities  for 
retrieving  the  mistakes  of  the  past  and  for 
more  tender  loving  of  the  dear  ones  whose 
presence  still  irradiates  your  home! 

Blessings  on  thee,  thou  cheerful,  thankful, 

one-legged  boy!     We  will  think  like  you  not 

of  the  things  which  we  have  lost  or  which 

we  lack,  but  of  the  many  mercies  still  vouch- 

[i68] 


THANKFULNESS 


safed  us,  and  we  will  join  in  repeating  that 
little  stanza  of  Robert  Burns, 

"  Some  hae  meat  and  canna  eat, 
And  some  wad  eat  that  want  it; 
But  we  hae  meat,  and  we  can  eat; 
Sae  let  the  Lord  be  thankit." 


[169] 


THE    GOOD-WILL    COMPANY 
UNLIMITED 

WHAT  kind  of  a  world  would  this  be  if 
the  Christmas  spirit  pervaded  fifty- 
two  weeks  of  the  year  instead  of  a  single 
week  or  two  as  at  present?  We  are  all 
pretty  well  disposed  toward  one  another 
and  mankind  in  general  during  the  holi- 
days. Whether  compelled  by  precedent  or 
the  prevailing  custom  or  because  of  the 
good-will  resident  in  our  hearts  we  think  of 
the  other  fellow  and  spend  time,  thought, 
and  money  on  him. 

For  many  people  Christmas  would  cease 
to  be  Christmas  if  it  meant  only  getting 
presents  from  other  people.  Last  Christmas 
I  watched  two  small  children  as  they  secreted 
themselves  from  the  rest  of  the  family  and 
applied  themselves  industriously  to  cutting 
and  pasting,  to  drawing  and  sewing,  all 
for  the  sake  of  the  people  whom  they  love 
and  to  whom  they  wanted  to  give,  by  the 
dozen,  things  that  their  own  little  hands 
had  made.  And  these  are  not  exceptional 
[170] 


GOOD-WILL    COMPANY 

children.  It  is  not  true  that  either  little 
people  or  grown-up  people  are  piggish  in 
their  disposition,  at  least  the  majority  of 
them. 

The  sweetest  of  all  exhibitions  of  good- 
will during  the  Christmas  season  have  been 
those  instances  of  reparation  for  wrongs 
or  hurts  inflicted.  Christmas  ought  to  be 
the  time  of  all  the  year  when  the  balm  of 
good-will  is  poured  over  the  sores  and  gashes 
made  either  by  wilfulness  or  thoughtlessness. 
We  ought  not  to  let  the  season  go  by  without 
sending  some  little  token,  a  modest  gift,  a 
pretty  card,  a  letter  that  shall  assure  any 
one  from  whom  we  may  have  become  es- 
tranged, if  ever  so  little,  that  we  intend  to 
do  all  in  our  power  to  restore  the  old  rela- 
tionship. 

But  if  good-will  at  this  time  triumphs 
over  our  self-centeredness,  why  may  it  not 
be  an  active  force  throughout  the  year.^ 
It  is  not  so  today  —  the  more's  the  pity! 
You  start  out  in  the  morning  and  you  cannot 
bank  upon  other  people's  thoroughgoing 
good-will  toward  you.  You  accost  a  stranger 
with  a  polite  request  for  information  and 
the  chances  are  only  even  that  he  will  give 
it  graciously  and   as   if  it  were   a    privilege 

[171] 


REAL    RELIGION 


to  him  to  serve  any  passer-by.  You  go 
to  the  butcher's  to  buy  your  dinner  or  to 
the  tailor's  to  buy  your  garment  and  you 
cannot  be  sure  that  the  man  with  whom  you 
trade  is  as  anxious  for  you  to  get  a  good 
bargain  as  to  make  one  himself.  You  meet 
people  socially  and  their  polite  inquiries  as  to 
your  health  may  grow  out  of  a  deep  interest 
in  all  that  affects  you  or  they  may  be  purely 
perfunctory.  So  all  through  the  day  you 
realize  that  you  are  in  a  world  where  every 
man  is  first  of  all  looking  out  for  himself  and 
for  other  people  only  incidentally  and  infre- 
quently, if  at  all. 

But  picture  a  world  in  which  there  will 
be  an  unlimited  and  constantly  operating 
supply  of  good-will.  Instead  of  feeling  that 
a  good  many  persons  were  against  you  and 
a  great  many  persons  indifferent  to  you,  you 
would  be  gladly  conscious  that  everybody 
was  on  your  side;  that,  from  the  newsboy 
up  to  the  millionaire  every  one  with  whom 
you  might  be  thrown  in  contact  was  ear- 
nestly seeking  your  welfare.  You  would  be 
living  in  a  world  of  brothers.  You  would  be 
free  from  suspicion  that  any  one  was  trying 
to  "do  you,"  or  hurt  you,  and  you  would 
never  lack  sympathy  and  succor. 
[172] 


GOOD-WILL    COMPANY 

Won't  you  take  a  little  stock,  yourself,  in 
the  Good-Will  Company,  Unlimited  ?  Won't 
you  help  to  translate  the  angels'  song  into 
concrete,  every-day,  far-reaching  good-will? 


[173] 


THE  MAN  WHO  CAME  BACK 

EASTER  is  something  more  than  the 
signal  of  the  calendar  for  the  putting 
on  of  new  finery.  Easter  is  something  more 
than  a  joyous  springtime  festival  in  honor 
of  the  return  of  the  flowers  and  the  birds. 
It  is  something  more  than  the  proclama- 
tion to  the  world  of  an  abstract  theory  or  a 
vague  hope  of  immortality.  If  Easter  meant 
nothing  more,  the  churches  would  not  be 
crowded  and  there  would  be  no  universal 
chorus  of  rejoicing  rolling  up  to  heaven  in 
many  different  languages  the  world  around. 

The  heart  of  Easter  is  the  belief  that 
One  came  back  from  the  dead.  Here  is 
the  ceaseless  procession  of  humanity  from 
the  creation  to  the  present  man  going  down 
to  the  grave.  They  have  been  dropping, 
they  are  dropping  every  minute,  every 
second.  As  we  speak  these  words  still 
others  have  stepped  over  into  the  land  of 
shadows.  And  from  that  bourn  no  traveler 
e'er  returns.  No  one.^  But  this  is  Easter 
Day  and  the  time  of  all  times  to  assert  that 
some  One,  out  of  all  the  myriads  who  traveled 

[174] 


MAN    WHO    CAME    BACK 

that  solitary  and  inevitable  path,  who  went 
down  into  that  narrow  house  appointed  for 
all  the  children  of  men,  some  One  who  died 
as  other  men  die,  save  that  his  death  was 
more  cruel  and  tragic,  came  back  after  a 
sojourn  in  the  grave,  the  possessor  of  even 
ampler  life  than  he  had  before  his  flesh 
saw  corruption. 

Prove  it!  comes  the  imperative  challenge. 
Nay,  exacting  critic,  do  not  hold  us  to 
mathematical  demonstration.  We  cannot 
prove  it  as  we  can  prove  that  the  three 
angles  of  a  triangle  equal  two  right  angles 
or  that  water  is  composed  of  two  parts 
hydrogen  and  one  part  oxygen.  Our  argu- 
mentation relates  to  a  realm  quite  distinct 
from  the'  physical  sciences.  And  it  is  not 
so  much  precise  logic  that  tells  here  as  certain 
powerful  considerations.  If  you  are  willing 
to  proceed  gently,  quietly,  realizing  that 
the  most  precious  interests  of  mankind  are 
at  stake,  we  believe  that  you  may  become 
as  sure  of  the  fact  that  some  One  once  came 
back  as  you  are  of  the  existence  of  your  own 
spirit,  of  your  wife's  love  for  you,  of  the 
inexorable  demands  of  duty  upon  your  life. 

This  much  must  in  candor  be  conceded, 
that  if  any  life  the  world  has  ever  known 

[175] 


REAL    RELIGION 


deserved  to  go  on  after  death  it  was  the  life 
that  so  many  of  us  believe  did  go  on.  Some- 
how the  thought  of  death  seems  foreign  to 
a  nature  that  had  such  a  genius  for  life. 
Death  might  hold  it  for  a  few  hours,  but  the 
vital  forces  must  have  quickly  asserted 
themselves.  As  the  Scripture  puts  it,  "It 
was  not  possible  for  Him  to  be  holden  of 
death."  That  rich,  affluent,  radiant  life, 
at  once  so  human  and  so  divine,  would  be 
the  kind  of  life  for  which  any  reasonable 
God  in  any  rational  universe  would  provide 
a  practically  continuous  existence,  save  for 
that  brief  experience  of  death  which  for 
other  purposes  of  the  Divine  Mind  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  undergo. 

Add  to  this  antecedent  probability  the 
fact  that  those  who  once  knew  him  best 
believed,  despite  their  first  doubts,  that 
he  had  arisen,  the  fact  that  the  Christian 
Church  and  the  Christian  Sabbath  are  un- 
deniable monuments  of  faith  in  his  resurrec- 
tion, and  the  fact  that  millions  throughout 
these  nineteen  centuries  and  millions  to- 
day of  the  truest,  noblest  souls  believe 
that  he  is  alive,  and  you  have  another  great 
support  for  your  faith  that  he  really  did 
come  back. 

[176] 


MAN    WHO    CAME    BACK 

This  is  what  makes  our  Easter  glorious. 
It  does  not  explain  many  things  we  would  like 
to  have  cleared  up  —  why  no  other  departed 
spirits  have  ever  come  back,  to  our  certain 
recognition,  why  we  of  ordinary  mold  can 
yet  hope  to  attain  a  personal  resurrection. 
But  the  sure  return  of  one  Man,  even  though 
it  happened  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago, 
is  evidence  of  the  persistence  of  life  after 
death  and  suggests,  if  it  does  not  absolutely 
demonstrate,  the  continuance  of  all  who, 
like  him,  dwell  habitually  in  the  presence 
of  God  and  make  it  their  aim  to  be  well 
pleasing  unto  him. 


1^77 


THE    CHARM    OF   THE    IMPOSSIBLE 

IT  is  such  a  fine  watchword  for  the  begin- 
ning of  another  twelve  months.  Would 
that  we  all  could  come  during  the  opening 
days  of  every  new  year  within  the  influence 
and  under  the  spell  of  the  Impossible! 
What  a  difference  it  may  make  to  us  and  to 
others  with  whom  we  shall  have  to  do  all 
through  this  coming  year! 

Take  it  first  in  the  region  of  individual 
habit.  As  we  look  back  over  our  pathway 
thus  far  we  see  the  wrecks  of  many  good 
resolutions  and  heroic  but  spasmodic  en- 
deavors. And  still,  some  of  the  objectionable 
habits  against  which  we  have  waged  fitful 
warfare  persist.  Indeed,  their  grip  upon 
us  may  be  stronger  than  a  year  ago.  "I 
can  never  get  rid  of  it,"  you  say.  But 
wouldn't  you  like  to  be  free.?  "Of  course." 
Well,  then,  indulge  for  a  moment  in  the 
luxury  of  thinking  of  the  impossible  as  the 
possible.  Act  for  today,  at  least,  as  if  you 
were  free  from  your  disability,  whatever 
it    may   be  —  the    habit    of    stooping   when 

[178] 


CHARM    OF    IMPOSSIBLE 

you  ought  to  walk  erect,  slavery  to  a  cigar 
or  a  cup  of  coffee,  procrastination,  tardiness, 
censoriousness,  despondency,  the  habit  of 
living  beyond  your  means,  jealousy,  envy, 
avariciousness.  This  is  but  a  partial  list  of 
the  things  that  are  a  blemish  on  character, 
and  maybe  your  particular  fault  is  not 
mentioned,  but  you  know  it,  or  ought  to 
know  it,  and  here,  at  the  turning  of  the  year, 
you  may  decide  to  make  short  shrift  of  it  in 
time  to  come. 

Then  there  Is  also  for  every  one  of  us 
the  charm  of  the  fresh  endeavor  to  attain 
heights  hitherto  unsealed  and  which  seem 
to  stretch  far  up  into  the  clouds.  There 
was  a  bright,  story  in  a  magazine  not  long 
ago  of  a  Japanese  young  man  in  this  country 
who  was  bent  on  becoming  a  musician. 
He  had  not  a  particle  of  native  ability  and 
the  teachers  at  the  Conservatory  of  Music, 
where  he  applied  for  instruction,  soon  found 
out  his  limitations  and  tried  to  dissuade  him, 
but  it  was  no  use.  He  had  plenty  of  money 
and  unlimited  self-confidence  and  ambition. 
So,  despite  rebuffs,  he  worked  away  per- 
sistently, cheerfully,  and  in  the  long  run 
to  some  good  effect.  "What  are  you  going 
to  do,"  asks  the  author  of  the  story  in  con- 

[179] 


REAL    RELIGION 


elusion,  "with  a  race  characterized  by  this 
indomitable  determination?" 

A  young  lady  applied  for  a  position  in 
the  office  of  a  friend  of  mine.  He  was  pleased 
with  her  and  after  outlining  the  duties 
expected  she  would  at  once  accept,  but  she 
hesitated,  and  when  he  asked  why  she  replied, 
'* There  does  not  seem  to  be  anything  particu- 
larly hard  about  the  position."  Noble  souls 
want  to  throw  themselves  against  the  hard, 
the  heroic,  the  impossible  propositions  in 
the  line  of  personal  achievement. 

We  should  feel  the  charm  of  the  impossible 
in  its  relation  to  the  betterment  of  this  world. 
"Oh,"  you  say,  "we  shall  never  get  rid  of 
poverty  or  sickness  or  discontent  or  strife 
between  classes  and  between  races.  We 
shall  never  have  entire  honesty  in  business 
or  peace  in  every  home  and  heart."  A 
counsel  of  despair  is  this.  Once  at  a  Lake 
Mohonk  conference  in  the  interest  of  op- 
pressed people,  some  one  spoke  of  a  certain 
proposed  policy  as  impossible  of  realization. 
Instantly  the  late  General  Armstrong,  the 
founder  of  Hampton  Institute,  the  great 
school  for  the  blacks  in  Virginia,  sprang 
to  his  feet  and  said,  "What  are  Christians 
in  the  world  for  unless  to  do  the  impossible.^" 
[i8o] 


CHARM    OF    IMPOSSIBLE 

Behold,  then,  on  the  opening  days  of 
a  new  year  the  beauty,  the  fascination, 
the  glory  of  the  Impossible.  For  if  you 
look  at  it  long  enough  and  steadily  enough 
and  sympathetically  enough,  it  will  melt 
into  the  Possible  and  then  into  the  Feasible 
and  then,  perhaps  before  this  year  ends, 
into  the  Actual. 


[I8il 


THE  MAN  YOU  MIGHT  BE 

MANY  men,  most  men  in  fact,  stop 
just  short  of  being  their  best  selves. 
That  is  the  pathos  of  human  Hfe.  We  have 
in  every  community  a  fair  supply  of  amiable, 
intelligent,  interesting,  respectable  men  and 
women.  There  is  a  vast  deal  of  kindness 
and  of  goodness  in  the  world,  filtering  con- 
stantly from  one  life  to  another.  But  along 
with  it  we  find  life  after  life  which  just 
fails  of  attaining  its  largest  development 
and  usefulness.  One  of  the  most  painful 
things  I  ever  heard  said  about  a  human 
being  was  the  remark  of  a  keen  critic  con- 
cerning an  attractive  and  versatile  young 
woman  that  "she  just  misses  being  an 
extremely  nice  girl."  He  meant  that  'with 
all  her  brilliancy  and  virtue  there  was  the 
absence  of  a  certain,  perhaps  indefinable, 
but  real  trait  that  would  have  made  her  a 
charming  and  altogether  lovable  creature. 
The  cause  of  such  arrested  moral  and 
spiritual  development  is  not  far  to  seek. 
Often  the  secret  of  it  is  the  comparatively 
low  and    sordid    ends    to  which    a   man    is 

[182] 


MAN    YOU    MIGHT    BE 

devoting  God-given  talent  and  strength. 
In  commenting  upon  a  prominent  American 
who  died  not  long  ago,  one  of  our  comic 
papers,  noted  for  its  frequent  flashes  of 
wisdom  as  well  as  of  wit,  said  sapiently, 
**He  was  a  first-class  man  with  a  second- 
class  career."  It  meant  that  barring  a 
brief  but  extremely  creditable  period  of 
public  service  he  had  given  himself  to  the 
amassing  of  wealth  and  to  the  selfish  enjoy- 
ment of  it  when  it  was  in  him  to  do  large 
and  chivalrous  service  for  his  fellow  men, 
to  lead  some  great  reform  movement  in 
politics,  to  apply  his  undoubted  intellectual 
ability  and  his  rare  capacity  for  influence 
over  others,  to  the  solution  of  some  of  our 
pressing  national  problems.  But  he  pre- 
ferred the  pleasure  arising  from  the  manipu- 
lation of  great  business  interests  and  the 
joys  of  society  and  of  his  clubs.  He  was 
not  quite  ready  for  the  moral  struggle  and 
sacrifice  essential  to  becoming  his  best 
possible   self. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  reassuring  to  see 
how  men  both  in  public  and  in  private  life, 
instead  of  deteriorating  as  they  age,  actually 
grow  better.  A  prominent  minister  who  at- 
tended a  while  ago  the  twenty-fifth  reunion 

[183] 


REAL    RELIGION 


of  his  college  class  told  me  that  the  thing 
which  impressed  him  most  was  the  fact  that 
almost  every  one  of  his  classmates  seemed  to 
have  improved  in  the  quarter  of  a  century 
since  graduation.  The  same  process  may 
occasionally  be  observed  in  the  political 
realm. 

No  one  becomes  his  best  self  unless  he  feels 
upon  his  life  the  push  of  some  great,  enno- 
bling force  from  without.  In  some  cases 
a  great  and  growing  sympathy  with  the 
rightful  demands  of  the  wage-earning  class 
makes  a  man  cherishing  it  grow  constantly 
nobler  to  his  dying  day.  To  others  some 
wrong  to  be  redressed  or  some  worthy 
propaganda  is  the  motive  force  in  the  spirit- 
ual advance.  And  to  still  others,  and  there 
is  a  multitude  of  these,  it  is  the  imperatives, 
the  restraints,  and  the  inspirations  of  religion 
that  furnish  the  impulse  to  the  realizing  of 
that  which  is  best  in  them. 

The  man  you  might  be  is  not  so  very 
far  away  from  you  today.  It  needs  only 
a  little  more  continuous,  strenuous  endeavor 
to  mount  up  to  him.  Oh,  to  have  a  vision 
of  the  man  we  might  be,  the  man  we  ought 
to  be,  the  man  we  can  be! 


184] 


\ 


